


All My Little Demons

by Katie_Grey



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anger, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Attempted Murder, Avengers Feels, Avengers Movie Night, Betrayal, Blood, Blood and Injury, Bruce Banner & Loki Friendship, Bruce Banner & Steve Rogers friendship, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Hates The Hulk, Bruce Banner Hulks Out, Bruce Banner Is a Good Bro, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce Banner is a Good Doctor, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Crying, Crying Loki (Marvel), Dark, Delusions, Depression, Descent into Madness, Developing Friendships, Enemies to Friends, Everyone Has Issues, Everyone Needs A Hug, Everyone has so so many issues, Friendship, Hatred, Head Injury, Healing, Hearing Voices, Heavy Angst, Hinted Stucky, Hurt Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Torture, Injury Recovery, Insane Loki, Insanity, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki & Tony Stark Friendship, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki (Marvel) Redemption, Loki hates Thor, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mental Illness, Mental Instability, Minor Character Death, No End to the Angst, Panic Attacks, Post-Avengers (2012), Protective Bruce Banner, Protective Steve Rogers, Psychological Torture, Recovery, Redemption, Sadness, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, So much angst, Steve Rogers & Loki Friendship, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark Friendship, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, The Avengers Are Good Bros, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Panic Attacks, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark Makes Cute Nicknames, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Torture, in my head, in the future, like so so so much, lots of hurt/comfort, possible slash, quesadillas, so many issues, steve misses bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-03-29 11:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19019131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katie_Grey/pseuds/Katie_Grey
Summary: After serving mere days of his sentence, Loki is freed by Thanos. But, instead of returning to his army of Chitauri, he has a different mission. To kill the Avengers. But nothing goes according to plan, and when Loki arrives at Stark Tower he is more broken than he has ever been before.Insanity has no mercy.Luckily, compassion, even from enemies, is a powerful healer, but will Loki be able to overcome his demons and accept these mortals' kindness, before Thanos grows impatient and it is too late?"And that was how all broken people ended. In a flash and a burn and an explosion, because broken people loved to drag others down with them to the depths."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N. I was pretty devastated by Endgame, but I've been wanting to write a Loki-centered story for a long time because I've very quickly become obsessed with Marvel. And Loki.   
> This story takes place before Endgame (right after Avengers one) because I couldn't think of anything to add to it... and I didn't like it that much. It wasn't a bad movie... I just hated the ending, and... other, Loki related things. And definitely some Captain America things.   
> Keep in mind that this story does have an unreliable narrator. Possibly several of them.  
> WARNINGS (in case you didn't read the tags): language, torture, and self-harm. Lots of self-hatred as well, and general dark themes and heavy angst. I won't be putting a warning before the chapters these things occur in, to avoid spoilers, so consider yourself warned.   
> And I realized I should probably clarify something: I DON'T think that mental illness makes you "broken", or any of the other terms I use throughout this story. When I'm writing from Loki's point of view I use those terms because he has a lot of self-hatred and I feel like that's how he would think of himself. Just to clarify :)  
> Oh, and I love quotes, and have added in some ones that I really like, in later chapters, for your enjoyment. Couldn't resist, sorry.  
> Now, please enjoy, the first chapter of All My Little Demons.

_ Kill the Avengers. _

_ It matters not how. Magic, strangulation, perhaps several well-placed daggers as they sleep. I care not, as long as they are dead. _

Loki tangled his fingers in his hair and pulled. The pain should have driven away his thoughts but it didn’t. So Loki pulled harder, and, when it still didn’t work, he resorted to scratching at his scalp, digging his nails mercilessly into the sides of his face, biting his lip until it bled.

_ Kill them. _

He stood and began to pace in circles like a wild animal, around the perimeter of his circular cell. Through the glass he could see nothing but a dark staircase and a small, barred window near the ceiling. The sky was blue. Earlier he had seen the sun, but now it had passed by.

The voice grew louder, insistent. It shouted at his skull.  _ You will kill them! _

“I would love nothing more,” he murmured. Foolishly, Odin had allowed the guards to remove the muzzle and the chain that bound his wrists. If it wasn’t for the spell that held back his magic, that choked it each time it tried to leap from Loki’s fingers, he would be free.

_ Escape.  _

_ Kill them. _

_ Now. _

The voice had arrived shortly after he was locked in this cell. It never rested, always insisting. It crept into his nightmares and screamed at him. But, although it was only a side-effect of his shattered excuse for a mind, something about it was oddly familiar. Like an old, forgotten friend, come to comfort him in his madness.

Loki punched the wall.

It didn’t hurt enough.  _ Nothing ever hurt enough.  _ He growled because he was a lion in a cage. The poor, pathetic lion that people ogled at with their big, sad eyes.  _ Oh, if only we could let him out, but this is for his own good. Poor lion is dangerous. Poor lion is a murderer and a liar and a  _ Frost Giant  _ and he deserves to die! _

“I know,” he said. “I know full well.”  _ And yet the lion never stops trying to break free. _

He continued to pace.

_ Watch them bleed, let them scream. Cut their screams short. Kill them. It’s all you’re good for.  _

Loki hissed between his teeth. He walked faster, but his mind helpfully supplied him with images - Stark, writhing in agony. Rogers, lying still with his little shield snapped in half. Banner - the Hulk - oh, Loki would enjoy killing him. Perhaps he would pick him up and throw him into the concrete over and over and  _ over  _ again to hear how he screamed, and see how he cried when he lifted a shaking hand to the mutated skin of his abdomen and felt one million shards of bone because his  _ ribs  _ were broken. Yes, Loki would enjoy it. 

He glared at the glass. He hated the glass.

_ You sit in a cell and imagine that you deserve freedom. You are more amusing than you know.  _

“Shut  _ up _ !” Loki shouted. His voice was so hoarse that he winced. 

He pounded his fists against the glass, he kicked it, he stepped back and ran so he could throw all his weight against it. It didn’t work, but it was worth it if only for the bruises that stung and distracted him from his own mind.

_ Don’t worry, I’m still here.  _

_ I won’t leave you  _ all  _ alone. You would only fall faster. _

Loki screamed as he hurled himself at the glass. He pulled at his hair and scratched at his face but nothing could dispel the image his _mind_ eagerly provided him - darkness and a churning dread in his stomach as the world grew small above him and he disappeared into darkness.

What was the  _ point? _ Did the all-knowing Allfather truly not understand that isolating Loki in such a small space with no room to  _ breathe _ would only fracture his mind further?

_ He wants you like this. His little broken doll. A toy for the dogs to play with. _

_ Chew and chew and chew until it’s ripped to useless, unwanted, shattered shreds. _

_ Do not give him the satisfaction. Escape. _

_ Kill them. _

_ Now. _

Loki laughed aloud. He had not been put in here long ago - less than two days, he thought, although he was not sure - but he had already tried everything. He had tried to reach out with his magic, but experienced instead the horrible sensation of his it being pulled and stuffed back into his skin. 

He had tried to break the glass but it was impossible. He had scoured every inch for a weakness, he had inspected the door mechanism for a fatal flaw. Nothing. Nothing.

He had had no visitors. 

_ Isolation is the surest way to madness. _

_ The Allfather knows this. _

Kill them. Not just the Avengers. Once the lion was free, it would prowl to Odin’s throne, rip out his heart with his teeth, and laugh as it did it.

_ There it is. _

_ The insanity you’re known for. _

_ You’ve lost your mind. _

_ Good for you. _

()()()

Whenever his thoughts wandered, he would remember how he had felt, standing tall and alone at the head of his Chitauri army and watching the people of Midgard fall to their knees before him.

_ You crave it. _

_ It is your rightful place, after all.  _

_ Above. _

Loki flexed the fingers that should have held his scepter. Breathed in the stale air that should have burned hotly with his magic. It was all so empty and so small. He felt like the walls were closing in.

He looked out the window. Now, the sky was gray. 

He was no longer above anything. They had put him in the deepest dungeon, but had made his cell out of glass so he could be continuously watched. They were still afraid of him. He smiled,

How long would Odin keep him here? How long before he or Thor came to see him, to point and laugh at the Jotun runt? Loki hoped it was soon. He had killed thousands and was a murderer and a psychopath and a worthless Frost Giant, but they believed him to be important, to be “family”, which made them more gullible than the smallest child. So easy to hurt.

Especially Thor. Oh, if only Loki were free. He would take Thor’s hammer and bash in his skull with it. He would be able to wield it. Not because he was  _ worthy _ , but because his magic and his body and his mind had been shut behind bars and crammed into this circle of glass, and he knew that once he was free he would feel infinitely stronger, with so much room to  _ stretch out. _

Loki paced.

()()()

It was the third day when he saw the glow of torchlight as someone descended the staircase. There were heavy footsteps, and the shadow they cast was large. Distinctive.

Instantly, he stopped pacing and straightened, chin held high.

_ Pretending you aren’t broken. _

_ The liar always lies. _

It was Thor.

Loki took a deep, quiet breath. He tried to gather all his pieces together, fighting for an imitation of sanity. Now that Thor was actually here, Loki did  _ not  _ want to see him.

“Brother,” Thor said, in a voice raspier than Loki’s had been a day ago. He held the torch at eye-level and it cast deep shadows that exposed the bags under his eyes. He wore one of his ratty sweaters from Midgard. Mjolnir dangled from his fingers.

_ Be wary of the big, scary lion. Yes, he’s in a cage and he hasn’t eaten in days and he’s perfectly  _ mindless, _ but you’re the prince and we wouldn’t want him to bite you, now would we? It’s probably a good idea to bring a deadly weapon with you just in case. Strike him between the eyes if he moves. _

Thor took several steps forward and stopped at arm’s reach of the glass. His eyes swept slowly over Loki and hovered at his face. 

“What in all the nine realms  _ possessed  _ you, Loki? Why would you do this?” Thor breathed deeply and adjusted his grip on the hammer. “I swore I would not visit you until I was calm enough to prevent myself from  _ shouting  _ at you for hours on end!” Thor practically shouted, quickly becoming angry, as he always did. “But if I was to keep that promise, I fear I would never have visited you at all!”

Loki met Thor’s eyes directly. He didn’t even blink. “And wouldn’t that have been tragic,” he said.

Either Thor was silently fuming or too thick to process the sarcasm. Either way, he didn’t move for several seconds, aside from constantly adjusting his grip on the hammer. His other fist was clenched. Ah, so he was definitely silently fuming. Good. He should be angry. Loki hoped the memories of his poor, broken brother’s actions kept him up at night. He hoped that was why Thor had bags under his eyes.

“I see I should not have come,” Thor said, bitterly.

“You were always an expert at stating the obvious.”

Thor closed his eyes briefly. Was that a trick of the light? Or was it, truly, the glimmer of a tear on Thor’s cheek? 

Loki laughed aloud. “Crying for your murderer of a little brother?” He was not Thor’s brother, but he knew it would hurt him more if he pretended to be.

“I must go,” Thor muttered. “A guard will arrive shortly with food.” His eyes met Loki’s for a second longer. Then he turned and practically ran up the stairs, torchlight bobbing wildly. 

()()()

Frigga followed not long after.

She stopped only a few feet from the glass, and reached out a hand to touch it. She left her hand there for a moment, unspeaking. 

Unlike Thor, she had no bags beneath her eyes, no obvious signs of distress. Loki did not care, because he did not  _ care _ if she mourned for her poor, unwanted, Jotun runt. That was not what he was. He was a  _ king _ . He had held power in his hands and, even if he had to wait for millenia, he would reclaim it. He would reclaim it and, once he had, he would kill them all.

_ Yes. _

_ Kill them. _

He was a king, and he did not care if Frigga mourned for him. Once he escaped, he would climb the steps to his golden throne,  _ above  _ all others. He would look down at her and throw his head back and laugh.

“You have injured your brother grievously,” she said softly, without meeting his eyes.

_ That was the point of stabbing him. _

Loki smiled, for that thought was his own.

But the voice quickly beat him back into submission.

_ Look how she fears for her favored son. She could care less about you. All that matters is Thor. _

_ She cannot even look you in the eye. _

_ She thinks you are a  _ monster _. _

_ She is right. _

“Why do you smile?” she asked, in a steady voice. She pressed both hands to the glass. “Thor is hurting terribly. Not because of his wounds, although those were indeed grievous. But he hurts for you. For his brother.”

Loki flinched. “I am not his brother. And thank the Norns, for I would despise being related to such an idiotic, insufferable oaf. Let him cry.”

Something hardened in Frigga’s eyes. She backed away from the glass. “You are so ungrateful for the love we have shown you. Loki… yes, you are adopted. But does that not mean Odin must have loved you when he first saw you? Otherwise, why bring you out of the cold? Why raise you as his own?”

“Do not speak to me of Odin.”

“He would see you.”

A laugh burst from Loki’s lips. “He may  _ see _ me, if he wishes.” He raised his arms and turned in a wide circle, aware that, after three days without food, without sleep, he looked like the ruins of his former self. “Yes, he may look at me, he may stare at me like I am a creature in a cage to be  _ observed _ or  _ studied. _ ” he began to pace in small, agitated circles. A shark, circling its prey.

_ A criminal, circling within his little glass cell. _

“Loki… you know he does not…”

Loki cut her off. “I will not see him. I will not speak to him. I will not acknowledge him. Tell him this, when he next asks to see me. Tell him his poor, pitiful little foster child would rather remain alone for a thousand years and slowly go  _ mad _ then look upon his face!” Loki stopped, breathing heavily, his back to Frigga. His hands were shaking, and he stared at them like they were a rather grotesque beetle he had never seen before. His hands were always steady. Always calm, always in keeping with his facade. But not now. Now, his hands shook with his anger. His many disguises were slipping away because he was no longer sane enough to keep the emotion from spilling out like so much boiling water.

“Very well. I will tell him to wait. But Thor would see you again, and I will not prevent him from coming, whatever you may say.”

Loki clenched his fists. Why,  _ why _ would Thor want to come? Had Loki not been clear enough?

“He loves you,” Frigga said.

Loki spun around. His eyes darted wildly from hers to the floor to the staircase to the torch on the wall. Its fire left a bright spot on his eyes. “And how would you know? How can you even pretend to know? You know nothing. But know this: Thor does not love me. Not after what I did.” He grinned, raising his arms. “And I do not regret a moment of it.”

_ The truth, for once. _

_ The broken toy loves being broken. _

Frigga nodded silently. There were no tears in her eyes. Instead, her head was held high as she turned and walked out of the dungeon. The sound of the door closing echoed long after she had gone.

Loki hurled himself at the glass.

()()()

The guard unlocked a small hatch in the glass that lined the floor and slid a tray through the opening. Loki glanced at it - a bland, soggy sandwich; a wilted, dried out apple; and a glass of water. The guard stared at him for a few moments, then left. But Loki did not touch the food.

He didn’t exactly care why he would rather have sawed off several of his own fingers than take anything they offered him, but he supposed it was because eating their food would feel like giving in. The hunger pangs were tolerable, so the food remained untouched. At first, he also refused to drink the water. But he was so thirsty from three days without any that he soon succumbed and took a few small sips. 

Then he paced.

_ Kill them.  _

_ Come on, you can do it. You’ve already proven that much - many times over. _

He held his chin high and saw thousands of faces beneath him. As one, they bowed to the ground. Reverence. He was a king. In that moment, with his scepter raised high, he felt so strong. Stronger than he had ever felt before.

_ And now look at you. _

_ So weak. So broken.  _

Loki barreled into the glass. Pain erupted in his shoulder, so he backed up and tried again. When he hit, something cracked and he screamed; but the spell the Allfather had cast on his cell only caused the wound to knit itself back together again.

Loki gritted his teeth and threw himself at the wall, eager for any relief from the voice in his mind. He punched the glass and one of his knuckles broke. Pain cut through his mind. He was a piece of shattered glass, breaking itself into ever smaller pieces.

Someone descended the stairs. “What the hell are you doing?” It was a guard, holding a torch and peering at him from behind furrowed brows.

Loki clenched his broken fist. Aside from that, he held an emotionless facade more effective than any of his projections. His face was deadpan, expressionless, like his emotions were a window and he had pulled down a shutter. He stood tall in the center of the room, head held high. 

The guard took a brazen step forward. “It was like you were trying to break the glass,” he said, with a mocking smile. “It’s indestructible. Especially without your  _ magic. _ ” He said the word with distaste. “So you’d better give up trying, because you are going to be here for a long, long time.”

Yes, Loki knew.

_ A miracle that you can know  _ anything  _ when you are so fractured. _

_ But soon your mind will be gone completely. _

_ And you will know nothing at all. _

The guard smirked at him, and left. When Loki heard the door shut, he backed up against the wall and threw himself at the opposite side, viciously, screaming.

The glass broke. Loki fell through and collapsed on a pile of shards. He stumbled to his feet and turned in a tight circle, warily, scanning all corners of the room. Someone must have broken it. It was not possible that his crude attempts at relief from his madness had broken the glass.

More footsteps. Loki waited behind the door, and when it swung open, he charged at the guard and pushed him to the ground before he had time to react. Loki forced his neck into the crook of his elbow and squeezed.

Strangulation was a slow, messy process. The guard’s hands gripped Loki’s elbow, white-knuckled, desperately trying to free himself. He managed to scream once before Loki squeezed harder. After several minutes he fell limp, staring at nothing.

_ And doesn’t it feel good? And doesn’t it feel right? _

_ He lies dead on the floor and you feel whole again. _

“Well done.”

Loki looked up. Ebony Maw was standing in the center of what used to be his cell, white, scabbed hands folded behind his back. His small, black eyes met Loki’s mockingly from an eternally sneering face. 

Loki smiled broadly. “So this is the plan then? Thanos has come to retrieve me?”

“Not exactly. You will not return to the Chitauri. Thanos has a much greater purpose for you.”

()()()

A few minutes later, Thor pushed his way past the guards that stood in front of the stairs to Loki’s cell. He knew Loki did not want to see him, but he could not stay away. This was his  _ brother _ . This vicious, bitter thing, locked away in a cage. And Thor would visit him, no matter what cruel things he said. Loki was a liar, he knew that. Could it not be that the terrible words he spoke were lies as well?

He wanted desperately to find a  _ reason _ , something that could redeem his little brother. He needed to know why he had attacked New York and killed all those people and he needed Loki to have some excuse - perhaps he had been under mind control, or the Chitauri had forced him to do it, or Thanos himself. Something.  _ Anything _ . Because Thor’s brother was  _ not _ a murderer. Thor’s brother would never do this. And, like it or not, Thor’s brother was the same person who was locked in that cell, who, Frigga had told him, paced wildly like a caged animal, who looked at Thor with pure hatred, who did not even want to see him.

And who claimed, even believed, such awful things: that his family had never loved him, that they thought him inferior because he was a Frost Giant, that they had raised him and loved him out of pity, nothing more. 

Thor longed to spend more time with Loki. To help him understand that they  _ did _ love him. That Thor loved him. But all Loki wanted to do was drive him away.

Thor paused on the staircase. What could he  _ possibly  _ say to make Loki understand? Loki would only refuse to listen. But Thor still kept walking down the steps, even though he knew it was useless, because Thor needed his brother and  _ had  _ to try to bring him back.

But when he descended the staircase, his heart dropped sickeningly into his stomach. The dungeon was filled with broken glass, glinting red with torchlight. 

Loki was gone.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Thor Odinson stormed down the hallway, hammer in hand, face a picture of rage. Outside, thunder boomed. Everyone had better stay out of his way, because he would not hesitate to strike them down if they said so much as a single  _ word. _

The great golden doors to the throne room were locked. Behind them, Thor could hear quiet voices. His father and mother were probably visiting with ambassadors. They would be angry if he disturbed them.

Thor raised his fist and pounded on the door. The sound echoed through the palace.

Oh, yes, Thor Odinson was angry. If the Chitauri army attacked now, he could have defeated them in mere moments and he would have laughed as he did it. 

Lightning blazed outside.

The door swung slowly open. “What is the meaning of this?” Odin demanded, from where he sat causally upon his throne with his head propped up on his elbow. 

Frigga stood next to the throne. Her hand moved to grip Odin’s forearm tightly. From the expression on her face, it seemed she already knew what Thor was about to say.

“I hope you will understand if I must ask you to leave for a few minutes,” Frigga addressed two dwarves, who stood at the top of the stairs.

Thor waited impatiently as they shuffled away. There was another great clap of thunder.

When they were gone, he dropped his hammer to the ground. It hit with a resounding  _ clang.  _ “Loki escaped,” he said. Both his fists clenched into fists.

Thor Odinson was very angry indeed.

()()()

Ebony Maw had flown them to Midgard. Briefly, Loki marveled at the amount of magic contained in those paper-white hands, that Maw could transport them so quickly. Then he saw where he was.  _ New York. _

Only four days ago he had ruled this city. He had looked down on his people, and they had kneeled before him. He had been so high  _ above _ . Loki breathed in the air, his hungry eyes scanned the skyline. He itched to call down the Chitauri once again and finish what he had started. To teach the Mortals their place.

“You like what you see?” a deep, rumbling voice from behind him.

Loki turned swiftly and dropped to one knee, eyes on Thanos’ boots. “It is but the beginning.” He bowed his head low, low to the ground, acutely aware that he was without his armor, instead wearing a dirty black shirt. His hair fell around his face in thin strands. Luckily, he could not see his face, for he likely had bags under his eyes deeper than Thor’s.

“You are right. But before the city can fall - before this world can fall - I have need of you. Rise.”

Loki stood. He itched to cast a glamour over himself - to erase the bags beneath his eyes, to slick back his hair, to drape his armor over his shoulders. He wished he could appear to stand taller, to have no sign of fatigue or hunger or lunacy in his eyes.

_ Are you so ashamed of me? _

“Has your magic returned?” Thanos rumbled.

Loki kept his eyes respectfully low, at the titan’s feet.“Yes,” he lied.

“Good. It should be easy for you to kill them.”

_ Kill. _

_ Kill them. _

Without thinking, Loki raised his eyes. “Kill who, my king?”

Slowly, Thanos bent so they were at eye level. He was  _ huge _ , each hand larger than Loki’s face. He could crush the life out of him without even trying. But Loki was not afraid. He was  _ eager _ . 

“Take a guess,” Thanos said.

Loki took a quick step back as the voice laughed darkly in his mind - laughed at his brother, who was dead, beside the bodies of Stark and Rogers and Banner and the rest. Loki stood over them, so tall, so great, so above. Unknowingly, he clenched his fists as if he were strangling someone. His eyes darted from the skyline and back again as he imagined he could see the distinctive shape of Stark Tower, jutting out towards the clouds.

_ Kill them. _

_ Kill the Avengers. _

_ Now. _

Loki smiled.

()()()

It was one in the afternoon, and Tony still hadn’t left his room.

It wasn’t that he was lazy. He itched to do something. To fix something, or maybe take something apart. He wanted to be in his lab, fiddling with a highly dangerous weapon while crappy rock music blared from his radio. 

“Can’t forget the crappy rock music,” he muttered to himself, as he lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. “If you tilt your head, that salsa stain kind of looks like a tortilla chip…” he trailed off. Why was there a salsa stain on his ceiling? He had no idea. 

The truth was, Tony couldn’t summon the will to move.

Four days since the attack on New York. Only four days since he had maybe, probably,  _ definitely _ been about to die, when he stopped rising and started falling, towards the portal that was closing too quickly. He had stared death in the face  _ again _ that day. Just a second later and…  _ poof. _ No more Tony Stark.

He glanced at the clock on his bedside table. 1:11. 

Bruce was downstairs somewhere, probably sipping a mug of tea. Tony should go talk to him. That would be fun, wouldn’t it? A few jokes, tossed back and forth. Instead of acknowledging the elephant in the room, they would shoot it in the brain with a machine gun. And that was nice. Not talking about anything serious. Neither of them were skilled in the department of serious stuff.

Mr. Stars and Stripes was here, too. He didn’t exactly have anywhere to live, and Tony wasn’t about to kick him out after they had kicked alien ass together. He was probably in the gym, developing those washboard abs and that distinctive, oh-so American ass.

Clint and Natasha had checked out right after the Avengers’ visit to the shawarma joint, four days ago. Muttered something about a top secret mission and gallivanted away down the street.

And the crazy lightning god guy Tony still couldn’t wrap his head around - Thor - had disappeared into thin air; thankfully, with his maniac of a brother in tow. Tony liked Thor. He hoped when he next came to visit, it would be  _ without _ his brother. Tony hoped to never see Loki again.

Tony sighed and folded his arms behind his head. God, he needed a  _ shower. _ He smelled like death. Just another reason not to go downstairs. He wouldn’t want everyone else to faint.

What a brilliant excuse.

“Yeah, well, I am pretty smart. After all, I’m a genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist,” he joked to himself, but the words felt lifeless. 

()()()

Bruce took a sip of tea. Ginger. He held the mug tightly in his hands because the warmth felt nice, and so did the steam on his face. He set it back on the table and settled back into the cushions with a sigh.

He was in Tony’s lab because the machinery interested him, sitting on an ordinary, brown couch that seemed out of place among the bright red metal and the hum of motors. Pepper had probably forced Tony to drag it down here. Bruce smiled wryly. 

She was on a business trip. Tony had fallen through a magical, alien portal only four days ago, and Pepper was on a business trip. But Bruce suspected the reason Tony was still in his room wasn’t that he missed her too much to come outside. Sure, he  _ missed  _ her. Obviously. But Bruce knew his desire for food would have outweighed that, any day of the week.

Tony might be sitting in his room, getting depressed over the battle that happened four days ago, but Bruce hadn’t thought about it in a long time. He was good at controlling his thoughts and emotions - he  _ had _ to be. Otherwise, the Other Guy would come out and start smashing.

Bruce took another sip of tea. He ignored the way the mug shook in his hands. Instead, he set it down on a table in front of him and took a few deep, calming breaths.

Something creaked. Bruce glanced up. Steve was standing at the bottom of the staircase. Surprisingly, he had managed to make it most of the way without a sound, but the bottom step had betrayed him. 

Steve walked carefully between the scattered metal devices and the discarded iron suits. He stopped directly in front of Bruce and surveyed him for a moment. “How’s it going?” he asked, at last.

Bruce offered him a half-smile, as it was all he could muster. “I’m fine. How’s Tony?”

“Still in his room.”

“Do you think he’d come out if we ordered some pizza?” Bruce asked. He wasn’t sure if he was joking.

Steve seemed to think he was, because he laughed. “I do think that might be our best bet.”

Bruce smiled ruefully. 

()()()

He was to, somehow, enter the tower without getting shot on sight. 

Then he would find a way to kill them.

That was what Thanos had ordered. Then he and Maw had both disappeared, leaving Loki alone in the ruins of his city.

Loki had a knife in his sleeve and another in his shoe, given to him by Thanos. These were his only weapons, for whatever spell Odin had cast over him had done serious harm to his magic. If he summoned all of his strength, he may be able to use it to shield himself for a short time, but he wouldn’t bet his life on it.

_ Strange. You seem to bet your life on so many things.  _

Loki swallowed. Thanos and Maw had disappeared, and now Loki was in the restroom of a Midgardian restaurant he had happened to notice, examining his reflection. He still wore the black clothes they had given him. His hair fell in thin strands around his face.  But the most interesting thing was that his shoulder was one huge, purple bruise. It throbbed. Loki supposed that once he had left the cell, Odin’s enchantments had not been able to mend him.

_ Odin _ , that wretched excuse for a king.  _ Frigga, _ his weak little wife.  _ Thor _ , an idiot to the end… and yet they would still try to  _ help _ him. Put him behind bars as if that would keep his madness at bay, and then  _ dare _ to visit him? Didn’t they understand that they were the reason Loki had lost his sanity? 

_ Does the poor, murderous little child feel unwanted? _

_ How sad. _

Loki punched the glass. Cracks raced up the mirror and separated, like the many branches of the World Tree. His image was distorted. 

_ Broken. _

His hand burned with pain, and yet the voice kept coming. Loki glared at the cracked reflection of his own eyes.

A stall door swung open. Loki whirled around and saw a middle-aged man emerge, brows furrowed. “You okay?” he asked, nodding at the glass. “It kind of sounded like you…”

Quickly, Loki turned away to hide his face, in case the man recognized him. “I’m  _ fine, _ ” he hissed. He purposefully knocked into the man with his shoulder as he left and slammed the door behind him. 

Stark Tower was only a mile or so away, in the center of the city. He walked quickly, pushing his way past others on the sidewalk. They glared at him but he didn’t care. He owned them. It didn’t matter what they thought of him.

Like it or not, he was their king.

The voice did not speak. Instead, Loki heard what he thought was  _ laughter. _ He stopped, grabbed a piece of his hair and  _ jerked _ it ruthlessly. He kept pulling until the laughter was drowned out by the pounding in his skull.

And then he was at Stark’s doorstep. Loki pulled on the handle. Locked. He looked through the window to see a quiet, gray, empty lobby.

He could break the lock. Find them. Attack them. But if he tried that, they would only kill him. As much as he despised to acknowledge it, he knew he could not hold them back in his weakened state. Perhaps he could take one or two of them down to Hel with him, but he would be hopelessly outnumbered, and the rest would live. He could not complete Thanos’ mission that way.

_ Get them to let you in. _

_ Their soft hearts will turn them into fools. _

Loki barely had time to suck in a breath before manic laughter burst from his lips. He tried to hold it back, but he could not.

()()()

Loki walked away from the door and into a nearby alley. The loss of his ability to produce a glamour meant he would have to create his own, but that was no object. 

He checked to make sure he was alone, then he hurled himself at a brick wall. He grunted at the impact, then did it again. And again. Closed his eyes and threw his head back until there was a satisfying  _ crack _ of an impact. His madness was gone and blood dropped down the back of his neck.

When the pain washed over him like warm water, he closed his eyes for a moment and smiled because the voice had been washed away with it. He was saner than he had been in four long days. He was sane. He was whole again.

No longer  _ broken. _

Finally, after barreling into the wall again, something in his arm cracked. Pain split his head in two. Loki had to lean against the wall and take deep, deep breaths to get some air into his lungs.

_ Think, _ he thought.  _ If someone found you, someone who despised you, what would they do to you? _

His eyes fell upon a broken bottle lying in the shadows, and a single shard of glass.

_ Perfect. _

()()()

**Despite the fact that you ordered me to “Never say a fucking word again or I swear, I’ll give you the voice of a Japanese schoolgirl”, I am afraid I must inform you that someone is waiting at the door.** JARVIS announced, in a monotone voice. If it was more monotone than was normal, Tony didn’t notice. He was too busy sitting up and stretching.

“That was a good one,” he said, when the sound of his back cracking sounded like a bag of popcorn in a microwave. He waved solemnly at the tortilla chip on his ceiling, then reached for the bottle of beer on his bedside table. His eyes found the clock. 1:29. As he watched, the numbers changed to 1:30. He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

Then Tony realized what was wrong with this equation. “JARVIS, who is it?” he asked. If someone was standing at his door, JARVIS was supposed to tell him who it was.

**There are no matching profiles in my databanks.**

Tony frowned. “Okay… do you know why they’re here?” he asked, then took a drink from his beer bottle because he could drink at 1:30 in the afternoon if he fucking wanted to and no one could stop him.

**There is an 88% chance that their reason for arriving on the premises is that they are in danger of an imminent and painful death.**

Tony nearly spit out his beer.

“Shit,” he muttered, once he had swallowed it. “Guess I’m getting up, then.”

()()()

Tony wandered into the kitchen when the pizza was nearly done. Bruce glanced at the timer. Only two minutes left. He smiled at the mug in his hands. Tony must have smelled the pizza. Deep dish pepperoni, his favorite.

“Morning,” he said, and chuckled softly at his own joke. Steve, who sat across from him with one elbow on the table and a half-eaten apple in his hand, looked up and grinned when he saw Tony.

That was when Bruce realized Tony was walking straight through the kitchen and towards the elevator. He looked dazed, as if he hadn’t taken the time to properly wake up. He was still in his robe, and he had a bottle of beer clutched tightly in his hand

Ah. So, less of an, “I’ll get dressed and have pizza with my friends like a mature, functioning adult,” thing, and more of an, “I’m practically asleep but I have something important to do so I’m going to drink five bottles of beer and hope I don’t fall down all fifty flights of stairs,” thing.

“Where are you going?” he called after Tony, as he was getting in the elevator.

Tony stepped inside and turned to meet Bruce’s eyes. “Wait here,” he said, putting out a hand as if to stop Bruce from coming any closer. There was something strained about his voice.

“No problem.”

The elevator doors closed.

“What was that about?” Steve asked, without taking his eyes off the doors. There was a crease of confusion between his eyebrows.

The timer beeped. 

“I don’t have a clue,” Bruce replied. He walked to the oven and took out the pizza. “But Tony had better hurry up and grab a slice because damn, does this look good.”

He forced a smile at his joke, but couldn’t bring himself to laugh.

()()()

45… 44… 43...

A million possible scenarios ran around in Tony’s mind, screaming their heads off.

Someone was being held hostage.

Someone had been attacked in an alleyway.

Someone had a deathly illness.

Someone was having a heart attack.

Someone was bleeding out.

They were all awful to think about, and the worst part was that each of the “someone’s” somehow ended up on Tony’s doorstep, each breath likely to be their last.

Why was Tony answering the door, again? He didn’t like  _ death. _ Didn’t like thinking about it. Didn’t like being around it. Sure, he liked preventing it, but didn’t everyone else on earth, as long as they weren’t a psychopath? Perhaps he should have told Bruce or Steve what had happened and asked them to answer the door, but he had been so freaked out that he hadn’t thought.

And now the elevator was descending agonizingly slowly.

25… 24… 23...

Tony fidgeted. He shifted his weight from side to side, his eyes darted from the door to the ground to the ceiling, he selected one of his fingers as a victim and bit down on the nail.

This must be really bad, because Tony hardly ever bit his nails. Pepper had helped him to break his habit, with constant nagging and bottles of clear nail polish that tasted bitter. So much for that.

But thinking of Pepper did help to calm him, if only by a fraction. Good. Someone was still in danger out there, but at least Tony wouldn’t have a  _ panic attack  _ before he could help them.

9… 8… 7…

Speaking of Pepper, something sensible popped into his mind. It was probably a good idea to wear his suit, in case of… well, imminent, painful death.

He pressed the two buttons on the watch on his wrist, and a thin sheet of metal quickly coated his arm, his body, his face. 

2… 1. 

_ Ding. _

The doors swung open, and Tony clunked his way through the lobby to the front door. Apparently he had used up all his sensibility for the day, because he didn’t even glance through a window before opening it. He immediately wished he had.

Because someone was lying on his doorstep, and he recognized them. Sure, they were covered in bruises and cuts. Sure, their sleeve was ripped to reveal a purple, bloody mess. Sure, their arms and legs were lined with gashes that still oozed blood. There was even blood on their face and in their short-cropped black hair. But Tony could never have forgotten that face, not in a million years.

_ Loki. _

He turned on his heel and slammed the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a review!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy chapter three!

“Holy shit… holy fucking shit…  _ Bruce! _ ” Tony cried, as he bolted from the elevator and skidded to a halt in the middle of the kitchen. “Holy fuck… you'll never guess what - are you even listening to me?”

Bruce and Steve were sitting on the counter, each chewing on slices of pizza.

“Okay, we are  _ not  _ doing this,” Tony said as he marched up to Bruce and ripped the pizza out of his hands.

“Hey!” Bruce cried, indignantly. “That was my…”

Tony threw it to the ground. It landed with a squelch _. _ Steve was frozen in disbelief, so Tony grabbed his slice and threw it, too, because he could, and because he wanted to punch something, but throwing food was less destructive.

Things were definitely serious when Tony wasted perfectly good pizza.

“What happened?” Bruce asked.

He slid down from the counter and looked worriedly into Tony’s eyes.

“Come see for yourself,” Tony managed to say without shouting out of anger or disbelief or fear _. _ He should have told them what had happened, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t say it, because that would make it real. He desperately hoped it wasn’t real. And besides, there was nothing like a dash of unnecessary suspense to lighten everybody’s mood.

They followed him without any further questions. He appreciated that. And, somehow, having people beside him in the elevator made the ride a lot more bearable.

He tried not to think about the ride back up, only a few minutes ago, when he had felt his heart pounding and had been convinced that the walls were closing in around him. About to crush him in their cold, metal embrace. He had practically ripped off his armor because he felt so closed in.

Bruce had this determined look on his face like he was ready for whatever was coming. He wasn’t. And if Bruce saw Loki, he would Hulk out. Tony almost smiled at the image - Bruce throwing Loki around like he was a football - but he would rather not sacrifice his tower, or end up being pummeled by the Other Guy.

“Bruce? You might wanna stay here. You  _ should _ stay here.”

Steve shot him a suspicious glance. “Why? What’s out there?”

He glanced between Tony and Bruce.

_ 3… 2… 1… Ding. _

The doors slid open.

“Stay in the lobby,” Tony said to Bruce. “We’ve got some really comfy chairs. Pepper picked them out, so you know they’re top-notch. You’ll be fine.” He smiled encouragingly at Bruce, who avoided his eyes.

Tony felt awful. He knew Bruce hated the thought that he was dangerous, that he might Hulk out at any second. But what else was he supposed to do? There was no need for the Hulk - Loki hadn’t exactly been in tip-top shape - so Tony didn’t really want him around.

Bruce nodded, swallowing dryly. “You really won’t tell me what this is?”

“‘Fraid not,” Tony said.

“Promise me it’s nothing you two can’t handle?” he asked.

“I promise,” Tony said.

He didn’t think about whether or not he was telling the truth.

Bruce walked to the other end of the lobby and sat in a chair. He didn’t look up from the ground.

Tony and Steve crossed to the door, but Tony didn’t open it.

“Tony, what is this? Is it dangerous? Should I be worried?” Steve asked from beside him.

“Hold your shield if it makes you feel better.”

“Why is it on your doorstep? Is it a package?”

“I don’t know. And no, although that’s a really funny word to use once you know the context.”

“Are you planning to bring it inside?”

“Never in a million years.”

“Why won’t you tell me what it is?”

“This isn’t an interrogation, Steve.”

Steve met his eyes solemnly. “Works for me,”

Tony put a hand on the handle and he pulled.

He purposefully looked at the ground so he wouldn’t have to see, but he heard Steve suck in a breath. Felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder.

“What…  _ What,  _ Tony? Who are they? And why did you leave them… we have to help them!”

Tony was about to reply, he really was _ , _ but Steve cut him off by racing out the door.

Tony looked.

The bruises had turned to a wince-worthy purple, the cuts were a maze of red lines like a map, the blood a river of red like a can of tomato soup had been dumped out on the ground beside him. But he still had the same face. The same lips that had smiled as he struck innocent people down. The same eyes that had looked at the ruins of Manhattan and seen something  _ good. _

Oh, and now Steve’s stupid, too-nice-for-his-own-good hands were under Loki’s arms and lifting him up. Steve hefted the demigod into his arms and carried him into Stark Tower. Tony stepped back to avoid accidentally touching Loki. Steve didn’t look at him.

“Hey, what the hell are you doing? We can’t -”

Steve kept walking.

“Wait, not near Bruce!”

Steve was heading for the lobby. Tony raced after him, trying not to see Loki’s head as it lolled back and forth with each step, the dried blood on his face, and the exhaustion that simmered within his eyes.

Eyes that saw nothing but destruction and evil, eyes that had looked at Coulson and decided to kill him, eyes that deserved to never open again.

Bruce was walking towards them, his face a muddled mix of emotions. He must have heard what Tony had said…  _ Wait, not near Bruce, _ as if he was a dangerous animal that was going to eat them.

His eyes moved down to Loki’s face, and he froze mid-step.   

Steve stopped when he stopped. “What’s wrong?” he demanded, tightening his grip on Loki. “Get out of the way.”

“Look at his face,” Tony muttered, through his clenched teeth. His heart was pounding, and he wavered as he was hit by a wave of nausea. He didn’t think he could bring himself to say the name out loud, because that would make it all so real.

And it couldn’t be real. This could not be happening. He was hallucinating, he was seeing things because he was so drunk, he was dreaming. The alternative was too insane to even consider.

Steve looked. His eyes traced the demigod’s features, and there was no sign that he had seen anything out of the ordinary aside from the way his hands shook around Loki’s shoulders, but he practically dropped him on the floor when he laid him down. Blood stained the carpet almost immediately, spreading outwards like a blooming flower. Loki’s head lolled to the side, and the lines of his throat stood out like ropes, stretched taut. Steve backed away quickly, as if Loki was a ticking time bomb.

“Why is he here?” Steve demanded, stepping towards Tony accusingly. “Explain this.”

“You think  _ I  _ know why he’s here?” Tony shot back. “Do you think if I knew I would be standing around like a…”

“He’s at your tower, Stark. You must know something.”

“And why is that? Why do I have to have all the answers? Why can’t I be clueless when insane alien demigods fall out of the sky and land in front of my tower?”

“Guys!” Bruce shouted. Tony got the sense that he had said it before, but they hadn’t heard.. Bruce was shaking, eyes full of fear. He held up his hands. They were green.

Tony and Steve could only stand helpless as he turned and ran for the elevator, and pressed frantically at the button. Tony felt a wave of sympathy. But when Bruce’s back arched grotesquely and his skin stretched taut around muscular limbs, Tony remembered himself and pressed the button on his watch again. Sheets of metal quickly coated his skin. Steve, who must have forgotten his shield, grimaced at him.

“Sorry, buddy,” Tony said, his words morphing into a brassy, robotic voice. “But here’s the plan: I tire him out, and you knock him out with a punch to the head. Bruce’ll wake up with a nasty bump, but whatcha gonna…”

Tony swore when a big green fist crashed into his face.

()()()

Steve watched as the two battled it out in the lobby, fists flying, bright beams of light flashing. His fists clenched and unclenched, painfully aware of his lack of a shield. There wasn’t much he could do to help at this point.

Except, perhaps, he could do something about Loki, who was currently bleeding out on the floor.

Steve pressed himself against the wall to avoid getting pummeled. Tony was yelling something about Shrek. The Hulk was roaring mindlessly. A beam of energy went through the wall.Loki was exposed in the middle of the floor. It was a miracle no one had stepped on him yet, and flattened him like a pancake.

Out of pure impulse, Steve darted forward, scooped him up in his arms, and raced for the stairs. He took all thirty-nine flights two at a time without slowing down.

Steve heard the Hulk’s roaring, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t stop because Loki’s breathing sounded like someone else was shaking a cup of dice. He didn’t stop because he were bleeding so heavily that Steve’s arms were slick with it, but he didn’t complain because he had to hurry or he would would die. All Steve did was glance over his shoulder and exhale in relief because the Hulk wasn’t chasing him. Then he kept running.

Into a white room with a small bed in the corner and table heaped with silver equipment and machinery and little beeping devices. Steve blinked at it, he was from the forties and he had no clue how any of this worked.

He laid Loki down on the bed.

Now that the adrenaline rush was fading, and the instincts that told him to, “Save everyone and get out and run and make sure no one dies,” had quieted, Steve practically shook. He clenched his fists and turned in a furious circle, itching for his shield.

Why had he done that?

He should have left Loki there to die. Shouldn’t he?

But after a few minutes of glaring furiously at the unsuspecting demigod in the hospital bed, that part of him was silenced.

_ No. _

Steve couldn’t just… let him die. That wasn’t what Steve did. That wasn’t who he was. Sure, if Loki was standing at the head of his Chitauri army and ordering them to attack New York, then Steve would hurl his shield at him, aim for the head, no problem. And sure, if Loki was holding his knife and about to stab someone  then  _ yes,  _ Steve would have shot him at point-blank range, right between the eyes.

He had thought about it a lot.

But not like this. Not when he was so… Not when he was barely even breathing.

Steve couldn’t kill him, and wasn’t not helping him the same thing? Wasn’t it murder to walk away now, when he had all the equipment available to try his best to keep him alive?

Something like a lens snapped down over his eyes - focus, sharpening his senses. Steve was at his best when he was under pressure. When he was trying to help someone. Especially when he was saving someone’s life.

Steve ripped away Loki’s shirt. Beneath was a wasteland of still-bleeding gashes and big, blooming bruises and crimson blood. But Steve was no stranger to blood. He may not know anything about Tony’s complicated gadgets, but he understood injuries well enough.

After he washed his hands he painstakingly cleaned each of the worst wounds - there were many - with water. He searched through five drawers of medical supplies ( _ seriously, was it so difficult for Tony to label them? _ ) before he found a cream that looked promising. The fine print said it could prevent infection, and that was good enough for Steve. He bandaged each of the gashes, wiped the dried blood away, and sighed, because that was all he could do.

Oh. He had forgotten to wipe the blood away from his face. Steve wetted the washcloth again and, looking away because he couldn’t bring himself to  _ look _ , scrubbed until his face was blood-free.

He didn’t feel any better. He felt strangely hollow.

Loki would live because of him.

There was some noise… someone coughing? Steve whirled around to see Loki’s eyes flutter before his entire body heaved and he choked out a puddle of blood.

“Jarvis?” he asked, although it still felt strange to talk to nothing. “Give me… life signs. Report. Data. Statistics. Or whatever it’s called.”

**Health report for Steve Rogers: everything is functioning at a natural -**

“No! Report for  _ him _ !” Steve pointed at Loki.

**Health report for unknown: unknown is in critical condition, suffering from many internal injuries and broken bones, and -**

Okay, then. Perhaps Steve hadn’t done as good a job as he thought.

()()()

It took Tony an exhausting fifteen minutes to subdue the Hulk, and by then the lobby was a wasteland of bent metal and gray stuffing.

But the Hulk was cornered in the, well, the corner of the lobby, and Tony kept a constant stream of bright energy flowing from his palm, pinning him to the wall. It wasn’t harmless by any means - Tony was sure the Hulk’s roar was a mixture of rage and pain, instead of only rage. Bruce would wake up with a nasty pain in his chest.

Now, if only he would wake up.

Tony didn’t have time to waste, being here. He was supposed to be upstairs, foiling Loki’s devious plan, whatever that was, and hauling his ass back to prison.

_Leave it to Bruce to Hulk out in the lobby_. _Who does_ _that?_

Because the more Tony thought about it, the more certain he was that Loki did have some convoluted plot up his sleeve.

_ Firstly, that would go with his whole shtick. Secondly, wasn’t this all a bit convenient? A bit Trojan-horse-esque? _

He had lain on Tony’s doorstep like a package or a bundle of newspapers, waiting to be taken inside. Once he was inside, he would carry out his plan - to kill as many of the Avengers as possible and retake New York.

Tony couldn’t let that happen.

“Come on, Shrek. Let’s hurry up with this,” he urged. “Come on… I need you.”

But it took another five minutes of wasted time before he finally saw a flash of recognition in the Hulk’s eyes.

That was when the elevator doors slid open again. Tony and the half-unHulked Bruce both swiveled their heads in its direction.

Steve stepped out of the elevator. “Oh, good. Neither of you are dead.”

Tony tapped his watch and ran forward as the metal disappeared from his skin. “Why the hell did you...”

“Bruce, I need you.” Steve said. “He’s hurt.”

“Oh no you don’t. What are you  _ talking _ about?” Tony stepped in front of Steve and waved his hand in front of his face. “Earth to Rogers. Here at Stark Industries, we lock supervillains up in prison. We don’t bandage their boo-boos.”

Bruce was now fully Bruce again. He staggered away from the wall, one hand on his chest, over his heart.

Steve straightened, eyes focused on a point above both Tony and Bruce’s heads. “He’s dying. He’s got broken bones and internal injuries of some kind, and I cleaned the gashes and tried to bandage them but I guess he’s got some serious issues and I can’t…” he swallowed, even though his throat was already dry. “I won’t let him die. Bruce?”

Bruce opened his mouth to speak, but Tony interrupted him. “No. Hell no. I’m not doing this. This is my fucking tower and I’m not harboring a whatever-the-hell-he-is.” He stepped forward with a clunk, gesturing wildly. “We’ll call SHIELD, make them deal with this. Yeah? Why are you both looking at me like I’m the crazy one here?”

“He’ll die before SHIELD can get here,” Steve said. “Bruce? Please?”

“No, Bruce, don’t… this doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah, I’ll try,” Bruce said, quietly.

“Seriously? You both are gonna ignore me?”

“Pretty much,” Bruce said, with a shadow of a smile. But one hand was still clutching tightly at his chest, and the green hadn’t faded entirely from his skin.

()()()

_ Beep. Beep. Beep. _

Loki’s eyes snapped open.

A white ceiling and glinting, silver metal. Breaths that hurt to inhale. A gnawing absence of pain, aside from the lessening ache in his broken arm and the pounding in the back of his head.

He was suffocating in something. Something too hot and too close. Loki reached up frantically to push it away, but his hands sank into something soft and light.

_ Blankets? _

The quiet beeping, the stale air, the absence of color.

_ A hospital, then? Why? _

He pushed the blankets away and sat up. He had a moment to take in the bed he was sitting in and the bandages he was wrapped in, the sinister machinery that lined the wall, the wires. Then he was hit with dizziness like a blow to the head, followed by bitter-tasting burst of nausea on his tongue. Something wailed in his ears.

“Oh my god,” someone said.

Loki reached into his sleeve for his knife. His sleeve was gone, his fingers brushed against bare skin. He tried to bend forward to reach his boot, but a sickly burning sensation in his chest stopped him, stealing his breath.

“Stop. Lie back down.”

Loki glanced in the direction of the voice, and he sucked in a breath that made his chest ignite.

Rogers was standing over him, towering over him. His face was a steel mask. But, when Loki looked closer, he could see the tightness of his jaw and the anger in his eyes, that his other hand was clenched into a fist. Rogers was here to kill him, to rip him apart, to get his revenge.

_ Then why aren’t you dead? _

Loki nearly grimaced at the sound of the voice.

“Lie down,” Rogers repeated. “You’ll just make your injuries worse if you don’t.”

Loki blinked.

Blinked again.

_ Could it be possible? Could his ploy have worked? Was Rogers truly so idiotic as to let him into Stark Tower and bandage his wounds? _

“Where am I?” he asked, voice painfully hoarse. His eyes darted around the room, hovering for a long time on the sharp metal instruments that glinted like shards of glass, and on the window beside his bed, through which he could see the city of New York, and blue, blue sky.

Rogers opened his mouth to speak, but Loki interrupted. “How did I get here? Why are  _ you _ here?”

Rogers closed his mouth. He looked to be deep in thought, and that look did not suit him. “Lie down and I’ll tell you,” he said, finally.

“No.”

“Do you  _ want _ to black out again?”

“Again?”

“You were pretty out of it when we found you.”

“ _ What?” _

“You lost a lot of blood. Your body couldn’t handle it.”

Loki stared in disbelief. He had slipped into unconsciousness on Stark’s welcome mat.

A miscalculation, that was all. He had lost too much blood, and his body hadn’t been able to handle it. But Loki hated to think of the spectacle he must have been, lying there all bloody like a fresh kill. Too weak to even stay awake.

_ Oh, but you were always weak. _

_ And your hands were already stained with blood. _

Loki practically shook, because there was no way to release his anger when Rogers was right there in front of him. He couldn’t have that blissful relief from the voices, not for any lasting length of time. He couldn’t even clench his fists because Rogers would see.

_ And we both know how much you love to be unseen. _

_ To hide in the shadows. _

Loki put a hand on the bed to support his weight, and he pushed himself up, trying to swing his legs over the side of the bed to stand. His arm would not support him and he fell back into the blankets, with a blinding pain searing its way through his shoulder. 

“See, what did I tell you? Lie down,” Rogers said. He cocked his head as if he had heard something far away. “Stay there. I’ll be right back.”

Rogers’ eyes lingered on him for a moment, and Loki met his gaze unflinchingly. Then Rogers left the room and closed the door behind him.

_ Beep. Beep. Beep. _

It was like the dripping of a faucet. The ticking of a clock.

_ Was Rogers trying to drive him crazy? _

Loki put his other hand on the bed and used it to push himself up enough to lean against the wall. An involuntary gasp of pain as fire shuddered through his chest. His breath hitched then. He couldn’t breathe _.  _ Loki clawed at his throat, fighting for air, fighting against the panic that was about to drown him.

A haze of darkness encroached upon the edges of his vision.

No, no _ , _ he would not black out again. He would not give Rogers the satisfaction of seeing his weakness, of seeing the power his injuries had over him… how far he had fallen that he could no longer even stay awake.

_ As if anyone would miss you if you fell asleep. _

Loki reached for his magic, but it was like reaching through the Void. As if he had tried to examine his nails and realized that there were no nails, no fingers, no hand. He knew his magic was somewhere deep inside him, trapped, perhaps, within a cage more claustrophobic than the one Loki had been trapped in. But when he called out for it, nothing answered.

The darkness was closing in. Like the walls of his prison, like the dark voice in his head. He was drowning in it. Loki fought to keep his head above water, fought to stay upright, but he only fell back into the pillows like an invalid. Only fell beneath the black, churning waves and into the smothering darkness. Only fell _. _

And slept, really slept, for the first time in four days. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a review :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god, this story is going so fast! As of today, I’ve got eight finished chapters, almost 40k words, and 78 pages! I published the first chapter twenty days ago. That’s almost four pages, or 2k words, per day! That’s INSANITY!  
> In contrast, this chapter begins at the 20 page mark. So I will probably begin writing longer chapters, just so that I don’t have to wait so long to see my favorite scenes posted!   
> I can remember how, when writing my HP story The Better One, I was so excited when I finally hit the 100 page mark… oh, my poor, innocent past self. So naive.  
> Thanks to tincturedwords for beta reading, as always

Steve found Bruce back in the kitchen, sitting on the counter again, legs swinging. He had evidently found another piece of pizza. It lay on his knee, untouched.

He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “Bruce…”

“What now?” Bruce didn’t look up. “Look, I could hardly be in the same room as him without… you know. I hate that I helped him. I’m not going back upstairs.”

Steve’s eyes dropped to the floor, perhaps to the same patch of wood flooring that Bruce was so fascinated by. “I couldn’t let him die.”

Bruce snorted.

“We both know he didn’t have long. And I couldn’t... I just  _ couldn’t. _ ”

“It feels wrong,” Bruce said.

“I know.”

They both looked up. They both studied each other, searching for a sign - a bitten lip, a creased forehead, something in the eyes - that would let them know what the other was feeling. But Bruce’s face was as blank as a toy doll’s, and Steve knew Bruce would not find anything in his, either.

“Where’s Tony?” Steve asked.

Tony had remained in the lobby while they both went upstairs.

“I don’t know,” Bruce said, bitterly. He peeled off a piece of pepperoni and stared at it. “Why are you here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be looking after our  _ guest _ ?”

Steve crossed the room to sit beside him on the counter. “I came here to check on you. I know that the Other Guy took over back there. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Well, it would never have happened if you didn’t...”

“Bruce.”

Bruce hardly faltered. His anger broke through, and his voice grew to a dangerous shout. “If you didn’t let that  _ monster  _ in!”

Bruce’s eyes snapped up to meet Steve’s. “I respect you. I swear I do. But this is going too far. This is  _ crazy.  _ Couldn’t you have phoned SHIELD and shut the door? Let  _ them  _ deal with this? You have no obligation to help him, but _ think  _ how guilty you’ll feel - we’ll feel - if this is all a trick and he ends up killing more people because you were too good of a guy to let him bleed to death?”

“Bruce…”

“Trust me, no one would blame you. You would have been doing earth a favor.”

“Bruce. Stop.”

Bruce looked away.

Steve took a deep breath. “You don’t mean this. You’re a doctor - you help people. If you had let him die, you would regret it. You’re not a killer. Not like him.”

“I…” Bruce looked away again. “Well. You… You’re right. I guess. And I think I already knew that, but I got so lost in my thoughts while I was staring at this damn piece of pizza that I forgot.”

Steve found that he was smiling.

“Anyway,” Bruce set the slice of pizza on the counter and turned to face him. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be watching him?”

“Yeah. But he woke up.”

Bruce looked at him, as if he was waiting for him to continue. “And…” he urged, when Steve didn’t reply.

“And what?”

“And why did you think it was a good idea to  _ leave  _ as soon as he had woken up?”

“I wasn’t sure what to do.”

“Okay,” Bruce ran a hand through his hair. “ _ Why  _ didn’t you have Jarvis tell me instead of coming down here? He could be...” Bruce jumped down from the counter. “Oh shit,” he said, frantically. He shot a glance back at Steve, then broke into a run.

()()()

It was a stressful elevator ride to get back to the hospital room (what  _ was _ it with them and stressful elevator rides today?). Bruce had to choose between thinking about the god upstairs, or Steve, who was standing next to him; or Tony, who they hadn’t seen in over an hour; or the gaping hole he had left in the elevator doors. None of them were particularly stress-free subjects. He decided to concentrate on the hum as the elevator descended, blocking out all thoughts and emotions and focusing on the sound.

_ Just breathe. _

_ Please, don’t forget to breathe. _

When the doors opened, Steve took off down the hallway. Bruce ran after, but with each step he fell further behind.

_ Stupid short legs. _

Steve vanished through the hospital door, and called out, “He's still here!”

Bruce slowed to a walk, breathing heavily, both from the running and from the anxiety. He entered the room to see Steve standing over the bed where Loki was lying.

“Thank god,” Bruce said.

Loki's breaths were still shallow, but much more even. His wounds were bandaged in white linen. 

“He was awake a few minutes ago. He tried to stand. He must have tried again after I left and passed out,” Steve said. Bruce saw his eyes wander over the blankets, which had been pushed to the far end of the bed, and over Loki, who was curled on his side. His eyes were closed in sleep but there was no sense of relaxation in his face, no comfort.

Steve looked worried.

“Come on. Leave him. Let's find Tony. I can tell Jarvis to tell us if he wakes up.”

“I'll stay.”

“ _ Steve _ .”

Steve turned to face him, folding his arms. “I'm staying.”

Bruce folded his arms as well, and stepped back towards the door. “You don’t even want to know how Tony is doing?”

“I do want to know, but…”

Bruce ignored him, and nodded at Loki. “That guy is an evil, all-powerful megalomaniac, and Tony is our  _ friend. _ You need to sort out your priorities. Even though I’m okay with the fact that I saved his life, it doesn’t mean I think you should waste all your time on him.”

“My priorities are fine. Tony isn't dying.”

“How would you know? You don't seem to give a shit about him.” Bruce took a deep breath, realizing what he had said when it was too late. “Sorry.”

Steve stiffened. “No worries.”

“Besides,  _ he _ isn't dying either. Sure, he's a little banged up, but he'll live.”  _ Unfortunately. _

Steve turned away, back towards Loki. “Look, if we both leave he might wake up and escape, and neither of us want that. Go. I’ll be fine.”

Steve was right.

“You better be,” Bruce said with a forced smile, running a shaky hand through his hair.

“I always am.” Steve’s lips curled into a smile that did not reach his eyes.

Bruce cast one more anxious look at the god in the bed. He smiled, but his smile disappeared as soon as he was out the door. He glanced both ways down the hallway and thought of the hundreds of possible places Tony could be.

“Jarvis, where’s Tony?” Bruce asked to the ceiling.

**Tony Stark is currently lying on a couch in the lobby beside an excessive amount of alcohol, staring vacantly at the ceiling.**

Bruce groaned and ran for the elevator,  _ again. _

()()()

Tony was  _ not  _ sulking. He was brooding, and there was a difference. Mostly, the difference was that crappy, yet cool, TV show villains brooded, and fifteen year old girls sulked.  

Hadn’t he told Pepper that a few weeks ago, before any of this shit happened? Yes, he remembered. She had hidden the last bottle of whiskey because it was “unhealthy.” He gave her the silent treatment for a few hours, and she accused him of sulking.

But another important difference was that, while fifteen year old girls didn’t do anything useful while sulking, a brooding villain was a villain that was crafting a plan.

He found it easily - it was in her closet, buried among her rows of shoes. Later, he invited her on a date. They watched the moon rise, and he poured them both a glass. She didn’t complain.

So no, Tony was not sulking. He was thinking of a plan. Sure, he hadn’t gotten far yet, but brooding wasn’t a fast process.

He glanced away from the lobby’s ceiling as the elevator doors  _ dinged  _ and opened.

It was Bruce, now in a gray t-shirt and brown blazer. “Sulking again?” he asked.

Tony scowled. “Go away,” he said.

Bruce smiled, and proceeded to walk towards Tony’s couch. “You sound like an angsty teenager,” he said, sticking his hands in the pockets of his blazer. He hadn’t been wearing it earlier, and Tony wondered why he had suddenly decided to put it on. It wasn’t cold.

“Yeah, well, you’re not much better, Mr. I-turn-green-when-I’m-angry.”

Bruce whistled. “You must  _ really _ be out of it. That joke didn’t even make sense.”

Tony shrugged awkwardly against the arm of the couch. “Hm.”

Bruce stopped in front of him. His eyes moved to the empty bottles that were discarded on the floor, to the one that dangled from Tony’s hands. Tony pointedly took a sip, raising his eyebrow. “What’s up?” he asked, after the fire had burned it way down his throat - burned away all thought and feeling, and left sweet relief behind.

“Are you okay?” Bruce asked.

No. No, Tony was not okay, because he was not anything. He was not okay, and he was not happy, and he was not sad, or scared, or angry, or anything at all. He was numb, numb like his head was frozen in a block of ice. But that was better than feeling. If he  _ felt _ , he didn’t know what he would do. He would be caught in a web of emotions and it was so tangled that he didn’t even know which would be the spider that would eat him alive.

He was so numb that his  _ metaphors _ didn’t make sense, or his jokes, or his thoughts, and that was fine.

“Yup,” Tony said. He raised the bottle towards Bruce before drinking the rest of it. “Never… better,” he choked out. The words mutated into an enormous belch.

Bruce raised his hands in surrender and stepped away. “Okay… up until this point, I wasn’t convinced, but after  _ that, _ I totally believe you.”

Tony dropped the empty bottle on the floor, folded his hands beneath his head, and returned his eyes to the ceiling. There was a streak of light on the ceiling that reminded him of a fork.  “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be watching Sleeping Beauty?”

“Yeah, but I’d rather make sure that my friend isn’t drowning his sorrows in alcohol.”

Tony didn’t bother trying to process this information. Instead, he hastily changed the subject. “Why did Steve need you?”

“ _ He _ was on the brink of death. Oh, and by the way, Steve says that he woke up for a few minutes. He’s back asleep now, though. I was thinking, if he wakes up again, he might try to use his magic. Do you have anything that can restrict that?”

Tony could only handle topic at a time. He settled for the first. “Belle was dying?”

He glanced over at Bruce to see that he was fiddling with his sleeve. “Yeah. Lost too much blood.”

Tony groaned and looked back at the ceiling. “So we saved his life.”

“You could say that.”

“I  _ am _ saying that. And I hate it.” Tony glared at the fork.

“Anyway. Restricting his magic. Any thoughts?”

Tony groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. “I don’t know. No. Maybe. I don’t know.  _ Fuck _ , what are we going to do?” he looked once more at Bruce, at his disheveled hair, at his anxious eyes. “We are  _ all _ getting too old for this. Except maybe Spangles, which is ironic, considering…”

“You’re rambling.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Tony ran his hands over his face again.

“I know what we’re going to do. We’re gonna call SHIELD, right?” Bruce asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“Great. You do that.”

“Yeah, and Fury’ll totally believe me when I’m slurring over every other word and can’t form a coherent sentence,” Tony said, even though he hadn’t slurred over a single word yet, and had produced plenty of coherent sentences.

He just really,  _ really _ didn’t feel like talking to Fury. His desire to talk to Bruce was already diminishing by the second, and he much preferred Bruce over Mad-Eye-without-a-sense-of-humor.

Not that Mad-Eye Moody ever had a sense of humor. Or did he? Tony didn’t remember, and he didn’t give a crap anyway. He was too out of it to comprehend pop culture references.

“Fine. I’ll get Steve to do it,” Bruce said.

“Why not you?”

“You think  _ I _ want to talk to him?”

Tony nearly smiled.

“I can probably cook something up for you in the lab,” he said. “So Belle doesn’t get any bright ideas about using her princess powers to escape.”

“Good. And I’m pretty sure it’s Aurora, not Belle,” Bruce said.

Damn. Tony must be  _ really _ out of it if his was mixing up his Disney princesses.

Bruce half-smiled at Tony, and walked backwards a few steps before turning to press the button on the elevator. The doors shot open immediately.  _ Never let it be said that Tony Stark builds a mediocre elevator. _

_ Or a mediocre alien-magic-power-preventer, because that could be really, really bad. _

Tony jumped up from the couch once Bruce had gone, kicking aside an empty bottle. He stretched dramatically, cracked his knuckles, and headed to his lab.

()()()

“...can you imagine what could have happened?” Loki heard someone ask, as he fought to the surface of his conscious, kicking and thrashing in the waves. But the water still pulled at him, threatening to drag him down..

“Yeah,” someone else said. Rogers, probably. It sounded like his voice - stern for no reason, with a blunt edge of ignorance.

Loki kept his eyes closed, feigning sleep.

“Steve?” That same someone said. They had a voice he recognized, a grating voice, but he couldn't put a name to it. He was too tired to remember voices.

“Yeah,” Rogers said.

“I'd like to apologize about earlier.”

“Don't mention it.

“Honestly, you're too nice for your own good. I said that you didn't care about Tony. That was...”

“Don't mention it.”

Thankfully, that useless conversation fizzled out. But Loki felt a tingling sensation, a looming presence. He was being watched, he  _ knew _ it. He fought the urge to fidget, to move away from the prying eyes. Eyes were a weapon, and he could do nothing to protect himself as they slashed at his skin, cutting out his every imperfection.

“So what’s up with Tony?” Rogers asked.

Loki nearly groaned out loud. Did they  _ have _ to continue talking? Mortals and their stupid, unimportant conversations… they actually thought that  _ any _ of this mattered. Once Loki had regained his magic, he would rip out their vocal cords and string them on tree branches.

“Oh, you know. Staring vacantly at the ceiling next to a heap of empty bottles. Same as before.”

“I hope I didn’t…”

Loki slipped beneath the waves.

Blackness blocked out his thoughts, turned him to a formless thing, floating endlessly through space… there was no light, no sound, nowhere to stand. Water crashed against his face but no, he didn’t  _ have _ a face… he felt for it and there was nothing there, no eyes, no mouth. He was only darkness, and he would float forever and ever.

_ Here in space, no one can hear you scream. _

When light broke through again, Loki was panicking too much to feign sleep. Fast, heavy breaths were squeezed out of his lungs like a bellows blowing air onto a fire. In out in out in out  _ breathe. _

His eyes shot open.

“Oh, shit,” he heard that person say - the person he couldn’t recognize. Loki glanced in their direction.

_ Fate must be having a field day. _

It was Banner.

_ The Hulk. _

_ The one who humbled you. _

_ You try to forget, because your fragile pride can’t take it. Allow me to remind you. _

_ He smashed you to a pulp and left you there in the ground. He broke three of your ribs in the first blow alone. _

_ And you would call yourself a  _ king.

Loki sat up immediately. He would  _ not _ be seen lying in bed like… like a corpse.  But sitting up left a sharp pain in his chest, and for the first time, Loki wondered what was wrong with him. He was a god… well. He had magic, and it should have healed him by now.

_ Don’t you remember? _

_ The All-father stole your magic. _

_ You are helpless. _

Loki’s breath caught.

“He’s awake,” Rogers said. Loki’s eyes snapped towards him, taking in the stern, emotionless eyes, the square shoulders, the angled jaw… he was practically carved out of stone _.  _ It was obnoxious - Loki couldn’t tell what he was thinking,

But, beside him, Banner was an open book, words leaping from the pages in their eagerness to be read. He was shifting from book to foot, fidgeting with his sleeve,  _ and  _ biting his nails, all at once. Loki felt a sense of pride that his presence elicited such a strong reaction, despite his being bloodied and unable to stand without passing out.

He smiled. “I’m truly impressed that you noticed such a small detail.”

No visible reaction. Fine… perhaps this was not the time for wit. After all, Loki had a part to play. Time to get in character.

“Now that you’re awake, we’d like to ask you some questions,” Banner said, sticking his hands in his pockets.

Loki bit his lip on purpose. “Go ahead… seeing as I’m helpless anyway, and have no way of preventing you, and if I don’t you can always force me to answer.”

Ah, subtlety.

Hopefully, although his thoughts felt like they had been dipped in molasses, he hadn’t lost his touch.

Banner and Rogers shared a glance. “Okay,” Banner said, awkwardly. “Why are you here?”

“Because you put me here and decided to stand guard,” Loki said.

Playing a part was difficult when there were  _ so many ways  _ to get under their skin, and Loki thoroughly enjoyed every one.

Still not much of an reaction, although Rogers’ stone face had sharpened into a glare. Banner looked nervous. What an awful audience.

Loki twisted the corner of the blanket, eyes still on Banner as if he didn’t realize he was doing it. As Rogers’ scowl deepened, Loki shifted away from the both of them, towards the wall.

“Answer the question,” Rogers said.

_ I thought I did.  _ “It was close by,” Loki muttered, dropping his gaze to his hands. His fists clenched around the blanket. He  _ hated _ this, this display of weakness, no matter how artificial it may be.

_ Does it displease you to serve your master? _

_ I cannot comprehend why. Kings are known for groveling at others’ feet. _

He inhaled sharply against the sudden longing for pain, for something to distract him, to take away his mind. The pain in his chest was now a dull ache. If he ignored it for long enough, he forgot it was even there.  It was not enough.

“Not an answer,” Rogers snapped, eyes flashing. “Why were you all beaten up? And why would you come to  _ us _ , when you know we hate you?”

Subtly, Loki dug his nails into his hands. “I…” he said, breaking off and taking several breaths, as if he couldn't bring himself to speak. Perhaps tears… would tears help to convince them? Would he have to put on a  _ show _ ?

Oh, Thanos, surely you could have chosen someone with less pride for your mission? Someone who would find no problem with groveling at their enemies’ feet. Loki knew many such people.

Banner’s voice contained more anger than Rogers’, but it was tightly constrained like a chained animal. “Answer the damn question,” he said.

_ Say it. Something weak, something that fits you. Watch how they smile when they eat up your lie. _

_ Thanos was stronger than me. _

_ I could not defend myself. _

_ He beat me to a bloody pulp and dumped me on your doorstep like a bag of garbage, and that is exactly what I am… the worthless Frost Giant, the pathetic, abandoned,  _ abused  _ son of Laufey. _

The voice kept taunting him, and there was no escape. Loki fell back onto the pillows and closed his eyes as his nails unconsciously pressed deeper into his palms, and his own thoughts screamed at him like banshees.

He was in his glass cell again, trapped, forced to listen as they jeered at him. If he opened his eyes, all he would see was their too bright faces that made him squint, that made tears spring to his eyes like he was looking at the sun. And they towered above him. They were the sky, and he was nothing, stomped into the ground and left there to die.

_ Do you want to know the best part? _

_ It is only a lie because it has not happened yet. _

_ But it could. _

_ Oh, you are helpless without your magic. More a useless pile of skin than… whatever you claimed to be before. When you fail, Thanos could find you, he could tear this tower apart to find you just so he can snap your neck, so he can rip you apart, so he can ruin you and hear you scream. _

_ But he won’t. _

_ Why? _

_ You are so insignificant, he would not even waste his time by killing you, much less torturing you. In the end, you will long for death, for pain, because that is how weak you are. But you will be denied. _

_ You will be the last left in his universe, trudging through the blackness. A king of nothing but shadows and dust. _

Loki was too weak to resist the voice’s taunting. He fell beneath the waves again, but it followed him there, whispering in his ear.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment! It would be sooo appreciated :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm going to start posting these twice a week so that I can catch up with what I'm got posted on FF.Net. However, I can't do that this week because I won't have access to my laptop. But starting next week, I'll be posting twice.

“Do you he's faking it?” Bruce asked, regarding Loki with an obviously forced show of casualness; hands in his pockets, one eyebrow raised as if he was surveying a new fence post or a plot of land.  
Steve answered honestly. “No.”  
“No?” Bruce repeated, turning to face him. “Whatever that was - you know, freaking out and going unconscious again - it could have been a performance. An act to get us to trust him. You do realize who we're dealing with, don't you? You understand that…”  
“Yes, I understand,” Steve interrupted, a bit of anger creeping into his words. Did Bruce truly think he hadn't thought this through?  
“Okay. Anyway, you're gonna have to call SHIELD. Someone's gotta do it, and you were the one who insisted on bringing him in, so…” Bruce trailed off.  
“I'll do it.”  
“Good.”  
They fell into a strained silence, both watching the demigod’s chest rise and fall shallowly, hearing his breaths that were like the creaking of an old door. Despite the absence of blood, his injuries were visible in his face. He was too pale, his chopped hair was thin and stringy, he looked horribly tired.  
Despite himself, Steve felt a pang of pity. Not because he felt bad for Loki, but it was something about seeing another human - or something that looked like one - in obvious pain that made Steve want to alleviate their suffering as soon as possible. He would block it with his shield, shoot it with his gun, run forward and cover it with his own body as if it were a grenade… yes, Steve had a long history of doing foolish things to make others feel better.  
Or perhaps it wasn't foolish. He supposed it depended on the scenario - on the pain, on the person.  
“I wonder what he was about to say,” Steve said. “Before he started breathing fast… looking terrified.”  
If it was a performance, it had been a good one.  
Bruce snorted. “I don’t give a damn what he was about to say.” He dug in the pocket of his jeans and produced his cell phone.  
“Here,” he handed it to Steve. “Call Fury. You do know how to dial a number, right?”  
Stiffly, Steve took the phone. “Yes.”  
“Good. It’s in my contacts somewhere. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go make sure Tony hasn’t blown anything up.”  
When he left, he may have closed the door with more force than was necessary, but Steve chose to ignore it.  
He turned the phone in his hands, but his eyes never left Loki. Something beeped quietly, tapping out a heartbeat. He was calm in sleep. He looked relaxed, like he was having good dreams.  
What happened to you?  
He should call, but he couldn't help remembering how Loki had looked a few minutes ago. “Terrified,” was what he had called it, but he should know better. During the attack on New York, he’d seen many emotions cross his face - triumph, anger, pride - never fear.  
Maybe something had changed. They couldn't assume this was a trick. Maybe someone had forced him to do it. They couldn't assume.  
Innocent until proven guilty.  
Fury tended to be impulsive when he was angry. He wouldn't ask questions. If they turned Loki over, they might never know what had happened to him.  
After carrying him up 39 flights of stairs, cleaning and bandaging his wounds, wiping away the blood, and waiting at his bedside for hours , then seeing his reaction to that simple question, Steve wanted to know.  
It hadn't been much of a reaction. He had bit his lip, edged away from them, and hadn’t been able to finish a sentence. The signs were subtle, and Steve barely picked up on them. So subtle that Steve thought they must be real, for if it was a trick, wouldn't Loki have done something more obvious to be sure they would see? But they had both seen anyway, and he was certain Loki had been afraid.  
He sank down into a chair, still turning the phone in his hands.  
()()()  
Tony had been biting his lip for ten minutes, without realizing he was doing it. What he did realize was the muggy haze that seemed to have curtained his mind. Made it seem like his hands were moving through water, his eyes were looking through a pane of dirty glass, and the pain of his bitten bottom lip was someone else’s entirely.  
He tried to focus on the two metal bracelets that lay on the table in front of him, with wires sticking out like grass through cracks in pavement, and little blinking lights on the side. Surrounding them was a mess of metal parts, other devices in various stages of growth and decay, and three bottles of beer Tony had set at the end of the table to discourage himself from drinking. That plan ended up being nothing more than an inconvenience, forcing him to walk to the end of the table every ten seconds and walk back again.  
Tony tried to focus but he couldn't, and that wasn't a good sign for anyone except Loki.  
Maybe SHIELD had something. They had a shit ton of creepy, unnecessary weapons, who knows? They might have an alien magic-stopper, kept there “just in case” like it was a flashlight, a plastic bag of shark jawbones, or a drawer full of kale (Tony had had weird friends. And the kale hadn’t exactly been kale.)  
And the bracelets might not work. Was it the hands that held his magic? Could they chain him up like Elsa, or did they have to coat his entire body in metal? Not that Tony would complain.  
He pinched the edge of his lip in between his teeth as he fiddled with the wires. The bracelets were supposed to catch all energy that tried to leave Loki, and keep it around his wrists. They would have a magicless Loki, and as a bonus, whenever he accidentally brushed against metal, he would probably get a massive electric shock.  
Tony, in his drunken haze, laughed out loud at the mental image.  
Damn, did it feel good to laugh.  
But he didn’t want to laugh by himself as he worked on a pair of high-tech handcuffs for an evil demigod who, by some cruel twist of fate, was asleep in his tower. He wanted to laugh with Pepper. He wanted her hand on his shoulder, and he wanted to turn to see her bright, freckled smile, and wanted her to kiss him delicately on the cheek. That was something she had grown fond of doing in recent days.  
She would talk with him in a way no one else did, digging her way down to the nitty-gritty bits of whatever was bothering him. He would sigh and proceed to explain. He knew she would listen, that she cared.  
He wanted that, but during the three days after the attack on New York, he had never once tried to get it. He had never allowed the conversation to drift towards the battle, or towards wormholes, or Afghanistan, or arc reactors, or anything that mattered. He knew if she was here, he still wouldn’t.  
Tony stuck a pair of screws in between his teeth to spare his lip, then inhaled sharply before touching two wires together. They sparked brightly, loudly like someone had clapped their hands, and Tony jumped back. But there was no burst of fire, no explosion, so he cautiously crept closer, grabbing a pair of pliers to examine the problem.  
“Jarvis? Has Steve called SHIELD yet?” Tony mumbled around the screws.  
He paused his work for a moment, waiting for the answer. The sooner Steve called SHIELD, the sooner Loki would be gone, and Tony wouldn’t have to finish building these bracelets, although he would anyway. He liked the feeling of metal and wires beneath his hands, something to distract him, something to do besides lay in bed and slowly die of alcohol-poisoning.  
Steve Rogers is currently sitting in a chair in room 39B. I can contact him, replay video footage, or check for any calls that may have left the vicinity.  
Tony waved a hand in the air, like a bird climbing into the sky. “Yeah, yeah. That last one.”  
There have been no calls.  
“Dammit,” Tony muttered. His hands slipped and a series of sparks burst through the air like fireworks, each accompanied by a loud popping noise. Tony jumped back again and accidentally dropped the pliers on his bare foot. “Dammit!” he shouted, cradling his toe in his hands. “Fuck! Shit! Fuck! Dammit!”  
He narrowed his eyes. Either he was mistaken, or distinctive, raucous laughter was coming from the stairwell. It was loud and carefree in a way he wouldn’t expect from Bruce. Tony grinned in spite of himself.  
Bruce’s head poked around the corner. “I told Steve I was gonna come make sure you hadn’t blown anything up,” he said. “I’d say that was a good call on my part. What happened?”  
“I dropped the pliers on my toe.”  
Bruce burst out laughing again.  
“Really?” he asked, as his laughter died down. He ran a hand through his hair and then stuck his hands in his pockets, sidling over. “How’s it going?”  
Tony shrugged. “Keeps sparking. I don’t feel like getting electrocuted, so I’m trying to be careful, but it makes it harder to know what the problem is.”  
“If SHIELD has something, or when they take him to prison, what’ll you do then? It’s good to see you busy. Seems like when you’re bored, you tend to… you know.”  
Specificity was not Bruce’s strong suit, but Tony knew exactly what he meant. “SHIELD is gonna come get him, right?” he asked, ignoring Bruce’s question. “I mean, that’s the plan, right? I hope so, because it sounds like a damn good plan to me. I don’t like it when undesirables mooch off my wealth. I am a billionaire, you know.”  
“I know.”  
“No one's called them yet.”  
This revelation was met by silence.  
“Another thing,” Tony said, spitting out the screws and sitting down to get a better look. He picked up one of the bracelets. It was cool to the touch, thin and hard, without any give. “Why is he here? And what happened to him? Did you ask?”  
“He passed out a minute after he woke up. We didn’t have much time.”  
“Did he say anything?”  
“Not really.”  
Again, specificity.  
Tony looked away from the bracelets. Bruce’s smile had gone, and he looked tired. They all probably looked tired. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Tony demanded, waving a bracelet through the air.  
Bruce shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know. He seemed off.”  
“If anything seems off, it’s a sham,” Tony turned back to the table and reached for another pair of pliers. “He’s the motherfucking god of shams! Or something like that. I don’t give a crap.”  
“I know. But Steve seemed to believe him. That’s why I’m here - I got angry. I couldn’t stand to look at him anymore.”  
Strange that by some unspoken agreement, they had all decided not to say Loki’s name.  
Tony half-smiled. “Join the club.” He walked to the end of the table, picked up a bottle, took a long drink, and set it down. Then he walked back, smiling beneath the judgement that practically radiated from Bruce’s eyes.  
“Seriously?”  
“When am I not serious?”  
Bruce let out an exasperated sigh. “Why do I have a feeling that you’re burying your emotions beneath stupid jokes?”  
Tony bit the inside of his cheek. Not helping, Bruce. Tony didn’t want to think about what had happened four days ago, or, for the record, what had happened in Afghanistan, although that source of trauma seemed small and worn-out compared to this shiny, brand new one… but, anyway, wasn’t it easier for everyone if Tony pretended nothing was wrong? They would get their helpful, funny, not-zoned-out billionaire, and Tony didn’t have to think about it.  
This was a lot easier than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling had been. He wished he had figured that out earlier.  
Tony realized he had been silent for some time. “You’re not my mom,” he muttered.  
Bruce snorted. “I hadn’t realized that. Honestly Tony, you sound like a child.”  
Tony ignored him. He grabbed another device from beside him - an old piece of some failed AI, or part of a broken iron man suit - and wrenched off a thin piece of metal, then another. His fingers moved deftly as he tore the device into pieces.  
“What are you looking for?” Bruce asked.  
Tony grunted.  
“If you won’t talk to me, I’m going upstairs.”  
“Okay.”  
“You’ll tell us when you’ve finished it?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Good. Come up if you need us.”  
Tony heard Bruce’s retreating footsteps, but didn’t turn to watch him go. What he did do, was finally give up and move the three bottles within arm’s reach.  
()()()  
“Why do I feel like I'm acting as a go-between for you and Tony?” Bruce asked as he slipped through the hospital door.  
Thank God Bruce was back. For the past few minutes, Steve had been doing nothing but stare at the wall. Once, he got up to look at one of the beeping machines, but soon gave up, as there were no clearly marked red buttons and that was the limit of his understanding.  
“Because you are,” he said, looking up from the wall and forcing a smile.  
Bruce smiled back, but it quickly melted away. “You didn't call SHIELD,” he said. It wasn't an accusation, he was stating a fact.  
Steve was still holding the phone. He set it on the ground and stood. “No, I didn't. I think we need to talk about this. All three of us.”  
“That would be great, but we can't leave him alone and Tony sure as hell isn't gonna come in here. Oh, and I don't feel like running back and forth to tell you what the other is saying.”  
“Tony can't stay in his room and pretend like nothing is happening.”  
“He isn't in his room. He's building something to restrict his magic, in case SHIELD doesn't get here before he wakes up for real. And it seems like that's going to happen.”  
Steve folded his arms. “I won't call SHIELD until I know the whole truth.”  
Bruce’s eyes flicked to Loki and back again. “I get it. I mean, I want to know, too. But he's dangerous, Steve…”  
“He's half-dead.”  
“It could be a trick.”  
“But what if it isn't? I don't want to make a hasty decision and regret it later.”  
They regarded each other closely, as each searched for a sign, again. Steve caught some depth of feeling in Bruce's eyes, but he didn't know what it meant.  
“Yeah. Yeah, I get what you mean,” Bruce dropped his gaze to the floor. He fidgeted, shifting from foot to foot, playing with his sleeve. “I wish there was an easy answer.”  
Don't we all?  
“Okay. Here's what we'll do,” Bruce clapped his hands together. “I… you go talk to Tony. Maybe he'll respond differently to you. I don't know. We'll work something out.”  
“What if…”  
“I'll try not to get mad if he wakes up. But if he starts flinging magical bullets around it might be best if I’m here, anyway. Do you have your shield?”  
Steve glanced around the room, then shook his head.  
“What? Why? You're gonna need that.”  
Steve grunted.  
“Anyway. Go,” Bruce put a hand on Steve's shoulder and steered him to the door. “Good luck. He's sulking,” he said, before he pushed Steve out the door and closed it behind him.  
Steve examined the hallway to get his bearings, and to take some time to process what had happened. It was a nice hallway. There was a potted plant.  
Steve shook his head, clearing his thoughts. There was no time for this.  
He took the stairs because he didn’t feel like staring at the gaping hole in the elevator. Tony’s lab was on the thirtieth floor, and nine flights of stairs was nothing to a supersoldier. He had climbed thirty-nine not so long ago. It hadn't been long, had it? And yet everything had changed.  
He knocked as he entered. “Tony?”  
There was a long table cluttered with broken, twisted metal, screwdrivers and shiny machinery, but no Tony. There were two empty bottles on the floor, but no Tony.  
Tony was standing in a bright circle of light, surrounded by long robotic arms, with two silver bracelets on his wrists. “Kay. Test… is that seven? Hey, Thing One, is that seven?”  
“Yes,” something answered, in a monotonous robotic voice.  
“Cool beans.” Tony busted out laughing as he spun in a circle. “Shit. Never said that before. First time for everything. Shit. I feel sick.”  
“Would you like to…”  
“No. Shut up, Thing One. Thing Two,” Tony snapped his fingers. “Start the test.”  
Up until now, Steve had been quiet, so as not to disturb Tony while he worked. But when bright lights began flashing and what looked like forked tongues of lightning descended from the sky and licked at his arms.  
Steve shouted across the room. “Hey! Stop!” and raced to where Tony was standing. He stopped outside the circle of light, unwilling to get electrocuted. “Tony, what are you…”  
Tony sighed. His hair was standing on end. “Thing… whichever. Shut it off. Down. Off.” The lightning disappeared and the bracelets fell from Tony’s wrists to the ground.  
“Tada,” Tony said. “It worked.”  
Steve folded his arms. “Was that safe?”  
Tony laughed loudly and spun in another circle. He was holding another bottle of alcohol. “Where’s the fun in safe? Safe is boring. Lightning’s fun. Besides, it worked.”  
Steve nodded. “I grant you that. Now, upstairs. We need to talk about…”  
”No.”  
“But we should…”  
“Nah.”  
“But…”  
“No comprendo, monsieur,” Tony said, grinning and taking a drink.  
“Do you know what that means?”  
Tony shrugged.  
“Bruce agrees with me,” Steve said. “We think we need to figure out what’s going on here. We can’t call SHIELD before we know the facts.”  
Tony took a step back, swinging the bottle in his hand. “Facts, huh? The facts seem pretty straightforward to me. How’s this for you? My tower, my rules. And rule number… one of my rules is: to not harbor the bad guys I spent way too much time and energy vanquishing. That includes, but is not limited to,” Tony walked in a circle, counting on his fingers, “Aliens, humans, mutants, cyborgs, robots, reptile-people, ogres, sentient unicorns, and gods. And demigods. Especially Norse ones.”  
He pointed at Steve. “I am not being racist when I say this, I swear. But, in my experience, the Norse ones are eviller than the other ones, and therefore, are higher on the list of creatures I would rather not harbor. Kapeesh?”  
Steve stared at him. “Yeah. Sure.”  
Tony lifted his hand to his ear in an impression of a cell phone. “Then…”  
Steve backtracked. “Wait… no. I meant no. No kapeesh.”  
Tony glared in return. “Fuck you then,” he muttered, and downed the rest of the bottle. He dropped it on the floor and it rolled away.  
Steve wanted to laugh, but he settled for a raised eyebrow. “Best you could come up with?”  
“No, but you would have yelled at me for being ‘too vulgar.’” Tony didn’t smile, but Steve could sense his old humor, not sarcasm. It was an obvious change, and a welcome one.  
“I’ll watch through Jarvis and talk through the loudspeaker,” Tony said. “That’s it.”  
Steve smiled. “That’s fine with me.”  
()()()  
When Loki finally woke up again, his heart was pounding and he didn’t know why. He could feel softness and warmth, hear beeping and rustling, see whiteness and a soft blur, but he felt submerged beneath the darkness. Falling forever through the Void…  
He had to get up. He was small and trapped, everything was above him. He had to get up. Loki blindly reached out for something to support himself against, but his hand wouldn’t move, he couldn’t move, he was falling…  
“Is he okay?” Dimly he heard a voice.  
But everything was fading again, and he couldn’t be sure if it was real, or his own thoughts, or his madness.  
“I don’t know.”  
“Hey! Breathe.”  
“Can’t believe we’re…”  
“I know.”  
Loki struggled, thrashing back and forth. Something was pinning him down, something was holding him fast. Something… something… he couldn’t move. He had to move.  
At least a lion can pace.  
Oh, great king, what have they done to you?  
Loki choked on his own throat. It sounded horribly like a sob.  
A face above him. Above him. Loki glared at them. He could feel the pounding of his heart, a drumbeat that rattled his bones. He had to move. They were going to kill him. He had to get out. But he had no magic and no arms and no mind and he was trapped.  
“It’s okay,” they said. “Just breathe.”  
The world came into focus. It was Banner who was standing above him, Banner with the green buried beneath his skin, waiting to bury Loki along with it. Loki forced his breaths to even out, forced himself to calm. He would not be seen like this. He would not give Banner the satisfaction.  
“That was only ten minutes,” someone else said. Rogers’ voice.  
Banner and Rogers are here.  
Kill them.  
Loki itched to do it. If only he could move. Oh, they would be dead in seconds.  
“I know. That’s not a good sign - he needs more sleep than that. We’ll wait a few minutes for him to calm down.” Banner replied.  
Loki didn’t bother trying to puzzle out their words. Not when his own mind was trying to drag him back down to the depths of sleep. He could not sleep. Not helpless as he was. Who knew what they would do to him? Fueled by rage, men became monsters.  
Pain Loki could deal with. If they tortured him, he would close his eyes and bear it, and at times he may be broken enough to appreciate it, for it would drive away his madness. But he did not want to die.  
Oh, how inspirational.  
The broken prince has recovered.  
But that is a lie. Truly, you are more broken than you were when you threw yourself from the Bifrost. At least then you had the good sense to destroy yourself. But now you live, and are a scourge on everything that breathes.  
Loki dug his nails into his palms and bit down mercilessly on the inside of his cheek.  
“Vitals are… decent,” Banner continued, his back towards Loki. “As good as I could hope for. Tony? You’re here, right?”  
“Yeah.” It was a crackling, robotic voice, but unmistakably Stark’s. Loki gritted his teeth. He was surrounded by his enemies.  
His breathing picked up pace again, going out of his control. Loki struggled against whatever was holding him, struggled wildly, so it hurt.  
“Hey. Hey! Stop.” Banner turned quickly and placed a hand on Loki’s shoulder.  
Loki jerked away. “Don’t touch me,” he hissed, but was appalled by the sound of his own voice. He sounded frail, like he was dying.  
“Okay, okay,” Banner held up his hands. “I’m sorry.”  
Rogers’ face came into view. “What’s wrong with him?”  
Loki practically growled. “Nothing is wrong with me.”  
He desperately tried to calm his frantic breaths back into a steady rhythm, to slow the beating of his heart, to erase the mind-numbing fear that made him want to run and never look back.  
Fool, you can’t run. The best you can do is maintain your composure, and yet you fail at that, too.  
He realized the inside of his cheek was throbbing. He bit down harder.  
“I don’t believe you,” Banner said. He had the audacity to smile. “But there’s nothing to worry about. We’re not going to hurt you.”  
“It’s never a good idea to make promises you can’t keep,” the robotic voice of Stark said. “I might decide to march up there and clock him over the head, you never know.”  
Bruce smiled apologetically. “He’s drunk.”  
“Irrelevant.”  
“Shut up, both of you,” Rogers interrupted. His eyes hadn’t left Loki during the conversation. “Remember why we’re here.”  
Loki met his eyes unflinchingly. Why were they here? To hold a farewell ceremony as they dumped him back on Stark’s doorstep? To gather around and cheer as they threw him out the window? After all, they wouldn’t be the ones to hurt him. Technically, any pain inflicted would be the ground’s fault.  
“We need to ask you a few questions,” Steve explained.  
Ah, so it was torture. They would force the answers from his lips. He wondered how they would do it, which way would be the most acceptable to them. It may begin with punches and descend into knives, slashes and ripping at skin. Maybe Rogers would hit him over the head with his gaudy shield a few times. It did not matter. Loki could bear it. He could bear anything.  
This was his part to play, after all. Poor victim of Thanos, tortured and dumped at their door. What was wrong with real pain to make his part that much more real?  
“I am ready,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is always appreciated :)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by tincturedwords and by DocWordsmith. Thanks so much!  
> Anyway. A bit of a filler chapter, but I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Banner and Rogers exchanged a confused glance. “Okay,” Banner said, cautiously. “I’m glad you’re ready, I guess.”

_ “I'll start,” _ said Stark.  _ “Why the fuck are you here?” _

Thankfully, the lies slipped easily into place. “Didn't I already tell you? It was… closest.” He pretended to look afraid, to look vulnerable. Easy, because he was. 

_ “Why were you in New York?” _ Stark demanded.

“I…” Loki licked his lips. “I ran from… I had to get away from...” he pretended he couldn’t finish the sentence, that was all. He could have said it if he wanted to.

_ “From Asgard?”  _

Loki looked steadily into Banner’s eyes as he shook his head. 

“From who?”

And here it came. The lie.  _ From Thanos _ , he would say, and then he would tell them Thanos had tortured him, had broken him, and all Loki could muster the strength to do was crawl to the home of his enemies because they were more forgiving than his own master.

_ “From who?” _ Stark demanded, again. 

“And what if I do not deign to speak? In which manner will you pry the answer from my lips?” Loki laughed sharply. “It will not work. I am not so easily broken by torture.”

_ Fool.  _

_ You must say the lie, must obey your master.  _

_ You are the God of lies. _

_ Lie. _

Banner and Rogers exchanged a glance. “We won't hurt you,” Rogers said.

_ “Really?”  _ came Stark’s voice. _ “Cause I'd enjoy roughing him up a bit, I don't know about you -” _

“We won't,” Rogers repeated, with more force. “We don’t do that here.”

_ Look, he can lie. Why can’t you? _

Loki pulled against whatever was holding him again, straining until he no longer could and he fell back into the pillows. He plastered a leering smile on his face. “And yet here I am, bound, unable to move, in a tower where no one can see, where no one can hear my screams…” he broke off, panting. 

_ And still he will not obey his master. _

_ Follow the plan, you fool! _

But it already was not going according to plan. It hadn’t from the start. 

Thanos had told him to enter and kill them. But Loki didn’t have any magic, he hadn’t been able to produce a glamour. He had had to resort to injuring himself, to pretending Thanos had tortured him, to gain their pity. But now he was tied down and he couldn’t kill them, and he couldn’t get himself to say the lie because of his pride. He was supposed to say it, that was the plan. Why couldn’t he say it?

If he couldn’t say it, what would he do? Thanos would kill him. He had to do  _ something. _

_ “What the hell is he talking about?” _ Stark asked.

Banner shook his head wordlessly. His fists were clenched. Rogers’ eyes had hardened in anger, stone eyes in a stone face.

“We won't hurt you,” Banner said, again, as if repeating it would make Loki believe him.

Loki spat venom. “But you had did not hesitate to hurt me five days ago, when you lost your temper and struck me down,” he pulled against his bonds again, struggling violently although he knew it was hopeless. “So hard that it broke through the rock, that it broke through my bones…”

He had hit gold. Banner’s jaw was clenched, his chest rose and fell rapidly with his anger. “That wasn’t...” he tried. Rogers stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder, whispered something in his ear. Banner nodded, but did not relax.

“Since you won’t answer Tony, can I ask a question?” Rogers asked.

Loki stared at him in disbelief. What was wrong with these people? Loki had no power here, Loki was the prisoner, the helpless prisoner, and yet Rogers would ask for his consent?

“You request my permission?” he asked, incredulously. This had to be a trick. Tricking the god of tricks - wouldn’t that be ironic? No, he would not allow it. They would not deceive him. He narrowed his eyes. “For what purpose?”

“It’s the right thing to do.” Rogers said.

Loki stared into his eyes, trying to decipher them. But there was no emotion there, no flicker of feeling. He hid himself well. It was admirable. “Yes…” Loki said, cautiously, licking his lips. “You may.”

Steve nodded. “Okay. Is this some crazy trick? Are you just trying to get on our good side? And… can you prove to us that you aren’t?”

Loki met his eyes boldly. “I am not lying to you,” he said. “But how can I prove it, when I am tied down, and-” he glanced down at his bonds, and at his hands.

_ What is that? _

_ Something on your wrist. _

Loki’s eyes flicked back to Rogers’ face. “What is on my wrist?” he demanded.

“Something Tony made to restrict your magic.”

Brilliant. Now Loki’s magic was hindered by two things.

_ “Can I say something? Good, thanks. I say we leave the guy here and go get some food. I’m starving,” _ Stark said.

Banner looked at Rogers and rolled his eyes.

_ “I saw that!”  _ Stark said.

Loki let his head fall back into the pillows, and closed his eyes. He was so tired. The waves were lapping at his feet, waves of exhaustion, about to pull him under. He wished he could dive in, get it over with. 

_ Perhaps the smart, powerful god should have thought twice. _

_ Perhaps the so smart, so powerful god shouldn’t have practically killed himself in the alleyway. _

_ Perhaps then he wouldn’t be so tired. So nearly dead that his greatest enemies are nursing him back to health. _

_ Poor thing. _

“Hey? Hey! He’s falling asleep again.”

_ “Fuck. He’s a slimy bastard. Didn’t answer a single question.” _

“Tony. He’s obviously not doing well. Could you at least pretend to be worried?”

_ “No, actually. I can’t.” _

“Both of you, be quiet.”

Loki glared at the inside of his eyelids. Why wasn’t he asleep? He wanted to go to sleep. He wanted the darkness, the endless darkness. 

_ Endless. _

_ Like floating through the Void, is it not? _

_ What if you don’t wake up? _

Loki, through a massive effort, forced his eyes back open. “Yes, I would appreciate quiet,” he said.

Again, his sarcasm was met by silence. That is, until a burst of laughter crackled from nowhere in the form of Stark’s robotic voice.  _ “Oh god,” _ Stark said, once he had regained the powers of speech.  _ “I’m so drunk. How am I standing? I feel like I should have passed out by now.” _

Banner looked exasperated. “Not the time, Tony.”

_ “Really? Because it doesn’t seem like you guys are accomplishing much, anyway.” _

“Tony, stop.”

_ “You know what? If he won’t answer our questions, I’ll leave you to it. I’m hungry and I want some damn food. Tony out.”  _ There was a final crackle, and a click, followed by deafening silence.

**Tony Stark has ended the connection.**

“Shit,” Banner muttered. “What are we supposed to do now?”

()()()

“Shit,” Tony said, as soon as he had ended the call. He lay his forehead on the wall in front of him and took a deep breath. 

He was in the right, so why did he feel like his girlfriend had broken up with him over the phone? It had happened before. Multiple times. Never got easier, although it did get predictable. They always said the same things.

“Focus, drunk Tony,” he said to the wall. “Come on, snap out of it. What are you gonna do?”

He took another deep breath, then stepped away from the wall. “Thing Two? Where’s my phone?”

The phone was eagerly presented in front of him by the robotic arm. So eagerly, in fact, that it hit him in the face. Tony swore and stumbled back, one hand over his nose. “Seriously, Thing Two?” he asked, as he snatched the phone away. Thing Two backed away, looking embarrassed. “You need to think before you act.”

The arm tilted to the side, as if to say,  _ “You're one to talk.” _

“Yeah, well, I made you, so the rules don't apply to me,” Tony said as he grabbed a bottle that was lying randomly on the ground, opened it, and drank at least half. “See?” he threw his arms up as if to demonstrate how high above the law he was, and then he belched impressively.

The AI didn’t look convinced. Although, that was probably Tony’s intoxicated imagination. It was a robotic arm, for God's sake. It  _ couldn't  _ be convinced.

Tony suddenly remembered why he had begun this weird interaction in the first place. He looked down at the phone in his hand, hesitating for a moment before dialing Fury’s number.

He knew Bruce and Steve would be angry, but come on, someone had to be the logical one here. And, in some weird twist like the ending of the ninth book of a series because the author had run out of ideas, it turned out that the logical one was Tony.

It rang seven times before picking up. __

_ “Stark? What do you want?” _ said Agent Hill.

“Where’s Fury?”

_ “He’s… detained. Will be for a while. Why?” _

“Something came up.”

_ “What?” _

“Something. Look, can I just talk to him? Like, for ten seconds?”

_ “What came up?” _

Tony rolled his eyes at Thing Two. “Something. I’d prefer to tell Fury.”

_ “No. He’s busy. Very busy. He should be back in an hour or so. You’ll have to call back. He doesn’t have his cell, and even if he did, he wouldn’t have time to use it to talk to you about something that apparently isn’t important enough that you can just tell me.” _

But Tony barely knew Agent Hill, and it felt wrong to tell her. He barely knew Fury, but at least he had had a conversation with the guy. He didn’t want to go blabbing to the entire world about this. 

Besides, he could manage Loki for a while, at least. It wasn’t like he was in any state to do anything but lie there, and Tony could handle a motionless god. Hopefully.

“I’ll call you back.”

_ “Try in an hour. He should be back by then.” _

“Okay. Thanks.”

Tony hung up.

He groaned. “We're surrounded by lunatics, Thing Two.”

Thing Two lowered its arm in agreement.

()()()

Bruce and Steve had moved to the corner of the room, where they were conversing in low voices. Every now and then, Bruce glanced past Steve to see that Loki was watching them intently. The white strip of cloth they had used to tie him down was stretched taut, although Bruce had been sure to not tie it too tightly. 

It felt wrong to tie down a patient, even a murderous one. But if Loki got away, everything could feel much, much worse. Bruce tried not to look.

“What if he calls SHIELD?” was the first thing Steve had asked.

“He won’t,” Bruce had replied, but now he wasn’t so sure.

It had been at least five minutes. More than enough time for Tony to call SHIELD, and more than enough time for doubts to creep into Bruce’s head. He had thought Tony had meant it when he agreed not to call SHIELD, and he trusted Tony wouldn’t be so impulsive, even when angry. But what if he was? What would happen then?

“I know I said we shouldn’t go look for him,” Bruce said quietly. “Because he seemed pretty angry, and he probably doesn’t want to see us. But we should make sure he doesn’t call SHIELD. I mean… you saw that too, right? His reaction?” he jerked his head in Loki’s direction. “It was weird. And it didn’t feel forced or put on. I don’t know what to think.”

Steve nodded. “Yes, I saw it.”

Bruce stole a glance towards Loki. His eyes shone with the light from the window, and he lay still as a statue, watching them closely. Although he was far enough away that he surely couldn’t hear their whispering, Bruce had the unsettling feeling that he caught every word.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. It was true. For one thing, it didn’t help that he had recently turned into the Hulk and felt like his brain was a pan of scrambled eggs, but he was also mentally exhausted from tending to Loki, from the battle of four days ago, and above all, this batshit crazy situation they had landed themselves in. It was so complicated, but if they didn’t make the right decision, innocent people could die. And Bruce didn’t know what to do.

“Of course you don’t. There’s no way to know,” Steve said. “Besides, it’s not up to you to decide. I’ll help.”

“Yeah. I know. I’m just… I don’t know. Everything about this day is wrong, and I think it’s getting to me.”

“Happens to the best of us. Myself included,” Steve did not smile, but there was warmth in his words, in his eyes.

“Thanks,” Bruce said. Then he visibly refocused, straightening to his full height. “Right. Okay. Since we can’t go find Tony ourselves, think we should ask Jarvis what he’s up to?”

“Sounds good,” Steve said.

“Okay. I will. Out of earshot of Belle though, right? If Tony’s drinking himself to death, I don’t want him to know.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at the nickname, nodded solemnly. He walked to the door and Bruce was about to follow him when he accidentally glanced at Loki.

He looked thinner than Bruce had remembered. Perhaps that was because he was small compared to the hospital bed. Perhaps Bruce’s doctor’s mind was prone to find things to worry about, when nothing was there. Either way, it was enough to make Bruce cross to Loki’s bedside. “Everything fine with you?” he asked. “You tired, or thirsty, or hungry, or something? Does anything hurt?”

Loki met his eyes directly, mockingly. “No,” he said, hoarsely, daring Bruce to challenge the lie.

Bruce mentally cursed his own stupidity. Of course Loki was tired - he kept falling asleep, after all. Of course he was hungry and thirsty - they hadn’t offered him food or water. And Bruce wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of his many injuries was painful, despite all he had done to prevent that.

“You sure?”

Loki did not bother to answer his question. Instead, his eyes dropped down to the blankets, and Bruce’s moved from the blankets to the strip of cloth he was tied down with.

Loki was helpless. He had no magic, probably couldn't stand properly, and yet Bruce had allowed him to be tied down like he was some vicious animal. That wasn’t right. Loki was his patient. He was a human (well, he looked like one) and it wasn’t right to bind him like this, not in his state. It was disgusting.

Bruce grabbed a pair of scissors from the table, and pulled the cloth up from Loki’s chest. Loki tensed when Bruce’s hand brushed against him, seeming to shrink into the pillows. Bruce pulled his hand away, then returned it and cut through the cloth, ignoring Steve’s bewildered glance. “Better?” he asked.

Loki’s eyes searched his face, darting from his eyes to his hair to his mouth to his hands, every part of him. Bruce shifted awkwardly before he caught himself and forced himself to stay still as Loki stared at him. 

And for the first time, Bruce really saw Loki. He let himself look - at the jaggedly cut hair, the broken skin of his lips, the hands that lay in fists on his chest, with red crescent moons carved into the sides of his fingers, the exact shape and size of fingernails. His eyes were forcibly expressionless, like Steve’s when he was remembering, or Tony’s when he was pretending to be all right. Perhaps like Bruce’s sometimes, too. But, starkly dark as they were compared to his pale skin and gaunt face, they looked hollow and haunted.

Slowly, Loki nodded.

Bruce forced a smile. “Good. Do you need some water? And are you sure you don’t want some food? I can get you a sandwich, or an apple, or some cheap, soggy pizza.” Loki deserved to eat, he had to eat, because he was Bruce’s patient and Bruce never let his patients go hungry. Sometimes he used to sit in the hospital room with them, waiting patiently and talking idly until they finished their food. He wore them down with his presence. He wasn’t a doctor anymore, but the basic concept was the same.

But Loki said, “No,” and his eyes left Bruce’s face to focus on a point somewhere behind him. The only sign that he was not a statue was that, every so often, he blinked.

“Suit yourself,” Bruce said, but he pulled a water bottle out of a cabinet and set it beside him, anyway. As soon as they sorted out this issue with Tony, he would come back and get him to eat. But right now, they had bigger problems to deal with. 

Would they ever run out of problems?

When Bruce reached the door, Steve smiled at him. He opened the door and they walked out, leaving Loki alone in the hospital room. But strangely enough, Bruce wasn’t worried. He knew Loki wouldn’t try to escape or sneak out and kill them, if only because he was clearly too weak to do so.

They walked to the end of the hallway. “Should be far enough,” Bruce said. “Jarvis? What’s Tony doing?”

**Tony Stark is currently having a meaningful conversation with a robotic arm in his laboratory. I can contact him, replay video footage, or check for any calls that may have left the vicinity**

“Check for calls,” Bruce said, bouncing on his heels.

**One call has been made by Tony Stark to a confidential number.**

Steve immediately took off running, and Bruce raced after him, once again cursing his short legs.

()()()

Midgardians were strange insects, indeed.

Now that Loki was able to sit up, he could see the city through the window, and the busy street below, hemmed in by a wall of skyscrapers that reflected Stark Tower and blue, blue sky.

The streets crawled with ants. Some were encased in moving prisons of metal - cars, he thought they were called - but many walked about unprotected. He could make out no more than colors - bright blonde hair, dark skin, light skin, a red dress. They scurried about through their anthill, into and out of doors, crossing the street, hurrying past each other. It was dull and small and fascinating.

They were his. He was above them, high, high in this tower. He was their rightful king and he would gather them in handfuls and crush them with his fists, and the street would be stained with their blood. But it wouldn’t  _ matter,  _ no one would miss them, because they were ants and they passed by like leaves in the wind. He could blink and they would be gone.

_ And yet they wander about free, and you are captive in the tower you look down on them from. _

_ Does a king count as a king if he is powerless and alone? _

_ If he bows to another? _

_ If he cannot find the means to kill his greatest enemies? _

Loki touched the bottle of water that sat on a table beside his bed. Cool to the touch. And he was thirsty, and wouldn’t it feel good to quench his thirst?

He hurled it at the wall, left-handed. It bounced harmlessly to the ground. Loki swallowed and blinked.

_ Your fault. _

_ You did this to yourself. _

_ Because you love your brokenness. You encase yourself in it like armor, and are so mad as to think it keeps you safe. _

All Loki could do was stare numbly at the wall, beaten back by the torrent of words that spilled from his own fractured mind. Then again, he didn’t try hard to resist. He was too tired.

_ You can do nothing. You cannot bring yourself to lie for fear of losing your pride, but who are you if not a liar? _

_ Are you a god? No, no, we all know that is not true. We all know of the hideous blue that lurks beneath your false skin. _

_ Are you a king? Ha!  _

_ Thanos’ most prized possession? Perhaps he truly needs you. Perhaps you have some worth, if only to advance his reign, and to fall into the shadows behind his throne. _

_ No. _

_ He does not need you. But he chose you to hurl yourself into the unknown, to be killed at your enemies’ hands. He knew you were not strong enough, even with your magic. He wanted to watch the fireworks. _

_ You are only alive because you are so weak that you allowed Odin to steal away your magic. You were forced to nearly kill yourself to gain the Avengers’ favor, but you cannot kill them because you cannot bring yourself to lie and lose your pride. _

_ Ah, you make me laugh, Laufeyson, that you think you have any pride, that it has not all been stomped into the concrete by Banner’s other half and turned to rubble and dust. _

Loki’s eyes fell on the water bottle, which had rolled across the floor to bump into the side of one of the Midgardian healing machines. The water within rose and fell like waves. 

A trick. The bottle had to be a trick. Why would Banner offer him water? Banner was the same one who had thrown him into the concrete, who had broken his ribs, four days ago. By all rights, he should have let Loki die. As should the rest of them. What was their plan? What could they get out of this?

Loki couldn’t think of anything, and that made him uneasy. He didn’t know why he was being kept alive.

His plan had worked, and he hadn’t the faintest idea why.

It made him want to laugh.

So he did.

()()()

_ Star: yeah, Loki’s magic was already taken temporarily by Odin’s spell. However, after a few hours, the effects will wear off and the only thing preventing him from using his magic will be Tony’s invention. And yeah, I liked the Frozen reference too, mostly for the fact that it implies Tony has seen the movie! _

Any and all reviews are stupendous! And no, I’m not just saying that. Everytime I get a review, I pause everything I’m doing to read it, and they always make me smile so thank you!


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit of a tough one, so maybe don’t eat with your chicken nuggets?  
> Thanks for DocWordsmith and tincturedwords for beta reading!

Outside the golden walls, a storm raged. Practically a hurricane, it boiled and billowed, swelling like the tides. A deep, furious black, spiked by brilliant flashes of lightning and great booms of thunder, unleashing vicious torrents of heavy rain.

Suffice it to say, Thor Odinson was still very, very angry.

He paced before the golden steps of the throne room, while Odin stood by, scepter in hand, and Frigga looked out the window at the storm outside. Thor’s footsteps were like a drumbeat, fingers clenched tightly around his hammer. Earlier, he had hurled it at the wall in a haze of rage. There was a crater in the wall behind Odin’s throne.

Thor ranted, restating things he had already said over and over, not bothering to rephrase them. “Can’t believe he would do this…”

“My own brother, for Norn’s sakes! Is it too much to ask to have at least  _ one _ sane family member?”

“And after I extended my hospitality to him! I came to see him when no one else would!”

That was when Frigga cleared her throat pointedly, for the third time, and Thor backtracked, for the third time. “Ah, sorry mother, I forgot you went to see him as well. And, of course, you two are both sane. So am I, I suppose. Less so now, of course.”

Then he continued to pace.

“But how will we get him back? How can we know where he has gone? Heimdall said he ‘couldn’t see beyond the mists,’ or whatever it was. How can we find him?”

“Yes, Thor, we are aware that we are in a precarious situation here. You have been telling us for an hour,” Odin said.

He was holding tightly to Frigga’s hand. “We are as concerned for your brother as you are, but there is nothing we can do at this point.”

His one eyes looked straight into Thor’s. Odin was not one for avoiding the truth. There had been no sugarcoating to be had in the last hour, and Thor felt very bitter indeed.

He kicked a stair. “All I wanted was to help him! And yet he would join the Mad Titan, he would attack the Midgardian city… I thought he may have been forced into it, that it might not have been his fault after all, but at the first opportunity he has gone crawling back.”

“Yes, we are aware,” Odin said.

“Let him be angry,” Frigga murmured into Odin’s ear, “Let him be angry until he has no anger left. It is what he needs.”

Thor glared in irritation. Did they think he was deaf?

Odin regarded Thor coldly. “Yes, be angry, but once you have calmed down enough to be useful; we must consider how to tell the public, how to fortify our borders, how best to track the Titan’s movements, how…”

“No thought for Loki?” Thor looked directly into his father’s eye. “Surely we must attempt to get him back. Track him, follow him. Find Thanos and we could sneak in and get him out…”

“Loki has made his choice.” Odin’s voice rang out, heavy with hidden anger. Frigga’s other hand moved to grip his forearm. “He will be treated the same as any of Thanos’ creatures.”

Thor’s hands were white-knuckled around Mjolnir’s handle. “But he is your son!”

Odin raised his head. “I am king. Loki has committed treason, and has killed many. I cannot favor him above any other criminal. These are the choices that must be made when ruling a realm. It is not an easy choice, but a necessary one. Someday you will understand.”

Thor was no child. He understood full well. He was angry at the truth of it. The storm that raged was to fill the absence of his brother, who, although not dead, was lost forever. Loki had fallen so swiftly in so many ways, had turned into something Thor did not recognize, and it was too late to bring him back. They could return his body to Asgard if they desired, they could lock it away behind chains and glass. But Loki’s mind was already lost and could never be returned.

He had smiled as he killed them. He had thrown his hands to the sky and ordered them to kneel. He had betrayed his brother, his family, his realm. And Thor, despite his overflowing, ever-forgiving heart, could not forgive that.

“I am so angry,” he said to the ground. His shoulders slumped and he dropped Mjolnir to the ground. It hit with a mighty thud _.  _ “I feel like a part of me has been torn away and hurled into the Void, and I am so angry at its loss.”

He wanted to rip apart the sky.

Frigga, after waiting for so long, finally stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him in a delicate, queenly embrace. “My son,” she said, softly, and Thor knew she was speaking about him. “I am so sorry you must suffer this way. You do not deserve it.”

Thor could not return her embrace, but he did lean his head on her shoulder. When at last she pulled away, she smiled sadly and wiped away a tear he had not realized was there. He smiled in return. “Thank you.”

He turned to Odin. “And how do you propose we tell the public?”

()()()

Loki was staring out the window when he heard a soft knock on the hospital room door. Quickly, he lay back down. Better to appear tired than awake. But the blankets remained bunched up at the foot of the bed. Loki hated them - they made him feel like he was being smothered.

“Mind if I come in?” Banner’s voice came from the other side.

Loki wondered why he had bothered knocking. He had no obligation to do so. What was with Midgardians and asking for things when they didn’t have to? It wasn’t as if Loki could refuse him access.

But since he was asking, Loki deeply considered telling him to go away, and never come back in.

But that wasn't what Loki was here for.

“No,” he said, once again wincing at the state of his voice.

“Oh. Good.” The door swung open, and Banner poked his head in. “It’s just me, by the way. Steve is talking with Tony, or trying to. I wanted to come see you alone. I can see how it might have been stressful, all three of us yelling at you.” Banner took a deep breath. “Um… we think Tony might have called SHIELD. That’s why Steve’s talking to him - to try to get him not to. Hopefully he hasn’t already. But if he did… they would be here soon, and they would take you to a prison cell somewhere.”

Loki’s eyes snapped to Banner.

SHIELD was not part of the plan. SHIELD would ruin everything. If Thanos discovered he had been captured by SHIELD - which he surely would - he would discover that the Avengers were alive, he would learn of Loki’s injuries, his lack of magic… And if he knew that, he would kill him.

Thanos was not one to torture his victims. He considered himself above that. It would be a quick, painless death, and Loki wouldn’t see it coming. Somehow, that was worse.

His heart beat faster.

“SHIELD can’t come here. Don’t let them…” unconsciously, he clenched his fists, dug his nails into the sides of his fingers. His eyes darted to the window, to the door, to Banner. No way out. No way to fix this. He was trapped, he would fail, he would die.

Banner’s eyes were on Loki. Loki met them, forcing himself to look afraid. It was easy, because he was, but it would have been easier to shove the emotion behind a sarcastic smile or blank eyes. He felt stripped naked.

“Don’t call SHIELD,” he said, holding out a hand in front of himself, as if to say  _ stop. _ “Please…” the word came out too quietly, stuck in his throat. He took a deep, steadying breath, and braced himself for what he was about to say. “ _ Please _ don’t call SHIELD.”

_ Begging, are we? _

_ It suits you. _

_ Finally, the Frost Giant knows his place. _

Banner walked to the bed, and stood beside it. He said, “You should have told us. Okay? You really should. But I’ll give you one more chance. Just tell  _ me _ , and I can convince Tony to let you stay here. I’ll find any way I possibly can to convince him, if that’s what you want. I’ll give you a chance.”

“ _ Why? _ ” the word fell from his lips. He did not understand. None of this made sense.

Banner stuck his hands in his pockets. “Because I need to know what happened to you. I need to. I’m a doctor, and a scientist. If there’s a question, I need the answer. And I’ve got a lot of questions, and not many answers, and not much time. But Loki, if you need help, I  _ want to help you. _ ”

Loki focused on looking out the window, at the blue sky, at the birds that circled and dived. He did not look at the busy street below, he did not look at the ants.

“Why?” he asked, again. “You’re making a clear tactical error. You’re trusting your enemy.”

Banner laughed sharply. “Oh, no. I don’t trust you. But something about this smells fishy to me. It has since the beginning. At least, it should have. But I’ve got to put aside my prejudice and try to find the truth. Another career to add to my growing list - detective!” he laughed again.

_ Now is your chance. _

_ The fool will listen to you. _

_ Lie to him. _

_ Do it. _

_ Fill his eager spirit with your darkness, corrupt him. _

_ Everything you touch is tainted. _

_ You will ruin him. You must ruin him. _

Loki hugged himself with his arms. He wanted so badly to slip back behind his mask of sarcasm and bitterness, but that would get him killed and he was already so close to the edge, looking down into that yawning abyss. He had to do this, had to.

“What happened to you?” Banner asked.

Loki did not look at him. Could not look at anything.

_ Shall I tell him? _

_ ‘A simple answer, Doctor Banner. _

_ ‘I am so insane that I beat myself nearly to death and bathed in my own blood. _

_ ‘Broke my own bones, threw myself against the bricks of the alleyway. _

_ ‘A just punishment for the worthlessness I am. _

_ ‘It is a pity I did not finish the job.’ _

_ And yet you cling to life like a leech, sucking dry everything that is good and pure, and feeding off the darkness as well. To your own madness - me - you hand the best of yourself on a silver platter. I own your mind, Laufeyson, Frost Giant. Only a matter of time before I own the rest of you. _

_ And you would claim to own these ants. _

_ Claim to be above anything but dirt and worms. _

_ You disgust me. _

Loki felt numb.

Something touched his shoulder. He jerked away violently, and stared open-mouthed at Banner, who had pulled his hand away.

“Something’s off about you,” Banner said. “It doesn’t feel like an act. You seem scared. Really scared. I’m not a psychiatrist, but… I mean, you’re breathing at a hundred miles a minute, and I’m sure your heart rate is skyrocketing… and all I did was touch you. You won’t tell us what happened. If you were trying to trick us, surely you would have said something by now? But you haven’t.”

“I don’t know you. I don’t know a thing about you. So to me, it isn’t so far-fetched to think that…” his adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, “Especially considering how you looked when you got here. Someone obviously did that to you… there are all the signs…”

Loki could have laughed. His plan had worked and he hadn’t begun it. Banner thought he had been - what? Abused? Tortured? And Loki hadn’t said a word.

_ Little does he know your abuser was not Thanos, nor any living being, but your own mind. _

“Just nod if I’m right. You don’t have to say anything. But please, I have to know. And I can convince Tony to let you stay here, instead of with SHIELD. Nod if I’m right.”

Yes, yes, that was what he needed - to stay. He  _ did not want to die. _

Loki wrenched his eyes away from the window and forced them to meet Banner’s. Banner’s eyes were deep, concerned, compassionate. Some mutual understanding passed through the both of them, and Loki knew he no longer needed to nod, but he did anyway.

Then he wanted to speak.

_ ‘Please let me stay.’ _

_ ‘If Thanos finds me he will kill me.” _

_ ‘I need to stay.’ _

_ ‘I’m so broken.’ _

_ ‘I want to sleep.’ _

_ ‘What is wrong with me?’ _

_ ‘I don’t want to die. Don’t let me die.’ _

Instead, he said, “Why should you believe me?”

Banner reached to touch him again. Loki shrank back, coward that he was, and hated himself for it. Earlier, hadn’t he pretended to be afraid of their touch, to shrink back against the pillows? But now he could not seem to make himself let Banner come near.

When had he become so afraid? Hadn’t he burned with anger, earlier that day? It had consumed him, and it had been  _ sweet.  _ Why couldn’t he have that back?

Had it fled from him when he realized he could easily die within the hour, when Thanos found him? Had it gone at some time as the minutes ticked by like a death march, as he stared out the window? Or had it drifted away on the voice’s words, as they cut at him like an axe, chipping him away? Or was it some awful combination of all three?

Either way, he wanted it back. Without it, if he wanted to escape death, he would have to kill Banner, and Rogers, and Stark, without any rage to propel him forward. He would have to look them in their fleeting, human eyes and turn them to blank, expressionless nothings on the ground.

Oh, he could do it.

But it just might kill him.

“I do believe you. Don’t worry. But… can’t you tell me what happened?” Banner pressed. “You don’t have to tell me. But you can.”

He looked hopeful, standing in the center of the hospital room, above Loki, who sat on the bed with his nails in his hands and his teeth in his lip and wished he had the strength to stand so he wasn’t always, always below everything else.

“Or, at least, you could tell me why you decided to come here. It’s a strange choice. And it’s why I don’t know if I can entirely believe you - although I want to - because it doesn’t make sense. We’re your enemies. Why here?”

An easy question. Loki could twist the truth and fit it into an answer. “It was closest,” he said, again. “I was already in New York. Anyone else would have recognized me and killed me on sight, but… I thought you wouldn’t. And it was closest.”

“Is that what you think of humans? We don’t mindlessly go around killing each other. You would have gone through the justice system like any other…” he paused. “Criminal. And it would have been pretty useless. Life in prison is about, oh, sixty years? You live for millennia.”

He smiled. “But then again, I doubt SHIELD would let you go to normal prison - they would have taken you back to their headquarters. So you made a good call, coming to us, although the execution was off. You didn’t have to make Tony so angry.”

Banner was still smiling.

_ But that is what he does. _

_ He angers and ruins and breaks and breaks. _

_ Did you not know? _

Loki wanted to hurl himself at the wall, to break his bones, to shatter the window and carve sweet lines of pain into his arms for a moment of relief, for something, anything resembling sanity.

How had it been before? When he was whole?

He could not remember.

Frantically, he dug through his memories, trying to recall something quiet, anything quiet, but it slipped through his fingers and was replaced by the darkness and the taunting voice that echoed through his mind and tore him to pieces. Had his mind ever been quiet?

He needed pain.

Needed this to stop.

“Please,” Banner said. “Tell me what happened.”

Loki wanted to tell him. Wanted to lie to him, and do it beautifully, so Banner would believe him and Loki wouldn’t have to die. But he couldn’t speak, because he couldn’t breathe.

“Are you okay?” Banner sounded concerned. “Your breathing is speeding up. You’re shaking. What’s wrong?” He reached out, stopping halfway to Loki’s hand, which rested on the soft mattress, shaking. “Does anything hurt?”

No. No, nothing hurt, and that was the problem. No matter how brutally he carved his nails into his palms, how ruthlessly he bit down on the inside of his cheek - until it drew blood - it was not enough, and he couldn’t stop shaking _. _

Funny, how earlier he had pretended to be afraid, and now he truly, truly was.

What was wrong with him?

Banner touched Loki on the arm. Loki stiffened, but did not pull away. So Banner placed a hand over Loki’s heart.

“Shit,” he muttered. And a finger on his wrist, feeling his pulse. “Damn.” He placed his hands on Loki’s shoulders, looking intently into his eyes. “Loki. Loki. Can you hear me? What’s wrong?”

“I need… I need to be alone,” Loki managed to choke out. He heaved a massive, stuttered breath, trying to calm down, but he knew it would not work. He knew what he needed. “A few minutes. Please.”

Banner did not move for several seconds, searching Loki’s eyes. Finally, he nodded. “Okay. A few minutes, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Truly alone. No watching over the cameras. Please.”

“Yeah, Yeah. Anything you want.” Banner let go of Loki’s shoulders, but did not walk away. Loki forced his breathing into a slower, more even rhythm. “A few minutes.” Banner said. He stared into Loki’s eyes for a moment longer, then turned and left the room.

Loki staggered to his feet.

_ Pathetic, pathetic, see how he begs for pain. He is the reason his mind has been cut in two. No one else to blame, Laufeyson. _

_ But do the deed, drive me away. _

_ I will return. _

_ I always return. _

_ No escape. _

Loki stood shaking, back to the wall. He drove his head backwards, reopening the old wound, sending a dizzying pain through his body like an electric shock. Blood dripped down the strands of his jagged hair, hair he had cut with glass in the alleyway.

_ You’ll have to try harder than that. I barely felt it. _

He could not throw himself at the wall, he was too weak. So instead he staggered to the table of silvery machines, grabbed a needle, and stabbed it into his leg. Again and again and again. He choked on the pain. He struggled to stand.

But it was beautiful, like a long sleep, and finally waking up well rested. He could think clearly, despite the throbbing through his skull.

It felt like freedom.

This was what he had felt like, before the voice. This was goodness. This was sanity. This was what it meant to be whole. And he never, ever wanted it to end.

He threw a silver device at the window. It shattered, and shards of glass glittered on the ground. He stared at them greedily. They were like jewels.

_ A king must have his riches. _

_ Go on then, Laufeyson. _

_ You will defeat me. _

_ And to the victor go the spoils. _

()()()

Bruce found Steve in the kitchen. Of course he did. He was seated at the table, with his shield on one knee and a cloth in the other, polishing it. Bruce suspected it was therapeutic, or something, the repetitive back-and-forth motion, watching the metal slowly begin to shine. Or he was obsessive.

Bruce opened his mouth, then realized he did not want to talk about what had happened. It seemed like something secret, sacred. Loki hadn’t given him permission to tell, so he wouldn’t, though Steve’s eyes were alight with curiosity. He had even paused in his polishing.

Bruce opened the refrigerator and pulled out a square of American cheese, a package of deli meat, and a jar of pickles. “Any bread?” he asked.

“No,” Steve said.

“What? How does Tony not have bread?”

No reply.

Bruce rooted around until he dug up a bag of tortillas and some guacamole. Of course Tony would have guacamole but no bread. “Think Loki would like a quesadilla?”

“I don’t know.”

Bruce looked up. “What did Tony say?”

“He wouldn’t let me in.”

“Shit.”

“What did Loki say?”

Bruce did not look at Steve. Instead, he ripped up some cheese and layered it on a tortilla, covered it with another tortilla, and stuck the whole thing in the toaster oven. When that left him with no excuse for ignoring Steve, he dug in the freezer and pulled out a carton of ice cream. He checked the expiration date and sighed.

“Bruce.”

“Hmm?”

“What happened?”

Bruce pulled out three more cartons, checking their expiration dates. “I shouldn’t say. Loki told me in confidence, I think. Anyway, he didn’t say much. You didn’t miss much.”

“You said his name.”

Bruce paused. He had, hadn’t he? “So did you. That was stupid anyway, how we all decided not to say it. Loki. There. No so difficult, after all.”

Bruce scooped some ice cream into a bowl. It was chocolate, but he still sprinkled chocolate chips on top. Hopefully, Loki would be able to keep at least the quesadilla down, and possibly a bite or two of ice cream. Bruce smiled at the thought of the demigod eating ice cream like a little kid. He would probably love it.

Bruce cut up an apple, decided Loki might object to that, as it might seem like Bruce was treating him like a child, and replaced it with an uncut one. He took a bite of one of the pieces. “Want some?” he asked, around a bite, holding up an apple chunk.

“No.”

“Suit yourself. I’m hungry. And I’m no help to anyone with an empty stomach.”

But in truth, Bruce was eating because it was something to do. Otherwise, he would have to stand around uselessly, and he would have to think about what Loki had said - and not said. A million thoughts would have raced unbidden through his head, then he would think about SHIELD, he himself would start to panic, and the Other Guy would come out and ruin everything.

No, it was better to eat.

No response but the quiet sound of Steve polishing his shield.

The toaster beeped. Bruce took out the quesadilla and smothered it in guacamole. “Okay. I’ll take this to Loki. See you again in a few minutes.” Bruce looked directly at Steve’s eyes, but Steve either did not see, or did not acknowledge him.

“I could come with you.”

“Do you want to?”

There was a clunk as Steve set his shield on the table. “Yes.”

“Okay.”

()()()

“Fury? Hill? I know it hasn’t been an hour, but seriously, can you come any sooner?”

Tony pressed a button to leave the voicemail. He scrolled through the texts he had sent to Fury - pathetically, seven of them, all exploiting varying tactics of persuasion, and none of them had been acknowledged.

He  _ was  _ like a fawning maiden.

Then he stared at the ceiling and seethed in his anger. Like a tooth in a can of soda, he was slowly eaten away.

()()()

Loki said, “Come in,” after the fourth knock.

Bruce glanced at Steve. He was holding the cup of ice cream, and Bruce held the quesadilla. It was so hot that it hurt his hand, even through the plate. “Ready?” Bruce whispered, with an encouraging smile.

“Always,” Steve said.

Bruce opened the door.

Loki looked better. His five minute break must have been pretty relaxing. He lay on his side, a faint smile on his face. His breaths were even. He had drawn the blanket up over his legs. Good, because it was pretty cold in here. Bruce would have to be that obnoxious person who adjusts the thermostat without consulting anyone else.

“Hey,” Bruce said. “We brought you a quesadilla, ice cream, and why is the window broken?”

Loki seemed faintly amused. “I threw something at it.”

Bruce laughed. “Ah, don’t worry. I’ve broken windows before, too. You’re all good. In fact, you look good. Better than earlier.”

“Is that so?”

“Yup.”

“Interesting.”

Bruce smiled and Steve set the quesadilla, ice cream, and apple on the table by the bed. “When was the last time you ate, anyway?”

It was phrased as an innocent question, but Bruce was morbidly curious to know if whoever had done this to Loki had bothered to feed him.

“This morning,” Loki said, eyes on the quesadilla. “Although, I will gladly accept your offering.”

“No problem. I made it for you.”

Loki’s eyes darted from the food, to Bruce, and back again. “Thank you.” His voice came out strange, hoarse and whispered. Loki cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he repeated.

“No problem.”

Loki did that short exhale that was actually a laugh. “It is one. But you do a good job of pretending.”

Bruce furrowed his brows. “I’m not pretending.”

The quesadilla must be fascinating, because Loki was studying it intently. His lips were chapped, bloodied. There were fresh nail marks in his hands. When Bruce looked closer, he saw that Loki’s hands were shaking slightly, as if adrenaline was coursing through his veins. Bruce pursed his lips, but didn’t ask.

“We have to go. We really need to talk to Tony,” Bruce said, when Loki did not reply.

Loki folded his arms over his chest.. Unbidden, unwanted, the image flashed through Bruce’s mind - of Loki lying so still and so bloodied on the ground, one arm at an unnatural angle, his head lolling to the side as if he were dead, and not for the first, or last, time, Bruce wondered what monster would do that to another person.

“Bye,” he said, awkwardly.

Loki met his eyes. “Farewell.”

Bruce nodded, smiled. He went to leave, but noticed that the water he had left for Loki had fallen under a table. Bruce didn't question it. He picked it up, set it on the table beside Loki’s bed, and left.

()()()

Steve stayed.

For only a moment longer.

Loki regarded him silently, sitting cross-legged in his bed. “Whatever you told Bruce,” Steve said. “You can tell me, too. You don’t have to worry, I’ll listen, and I won’t laugh at you, or whatever you’re afraid of.”

Loki’s hands were clasped tightly in his lap. He nodded, slowly, but did not speak.

“Okay,” Steve said. “See you.”

He turned, and his eyes fell upon the little trash bin in the corner, and a heap of bloodied rags that lay in it. He froze, and his eyes darted back to Loki.

“Coughing,” Loki said, quietly. “Common symptoms for Aesir. It is nothing, and it will pass.”

Steve was not a doctor. Especially not an alien one. But he knew enough to know that coughing up blood was never a good sign. “If you need anything, I can call back Bruce and he can help you. We both can help you.”

“No, there is nothing that I need,” Loki said. “Aside from peace and quiet.”

Steve nodded.

He swallowed. And he walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment! If it showed the wrong chapter, please tell me, lol. But if it showed the right one, I'd love to know what you think of it. :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh so the mistake with posting chapter seven was completely my fault... I accidentally put chapter seven IN chapter six for some reason. But I think it should be right now. Hopefully. Thanks to everyone who pointed that out, lol.  
> Aaand… this one was beta read by tincturedwords and DocWordmith. Thanks, y'all are amazing.

Bruce hesitated outside Tony’s door. This situation was delicate - he needed to think it through. What was it Loki had said? Something about tactical errors? Bruce could not make a tactical error here.

So Bruce sat on the floor and worked through the possibilities, logically, orderly, like he was performing a difficult surgery. It took time, patience, and care - and Bruce had thirty minutes.

He leaned his forehead against the door, eyes closed, hands fidgeting in his lap. 

“Come  _ on,  _ Bruce. Think.”

He didn't normally talk to himself, but sometimes, when he was stressed, it helped to give himself orders, things to do. Like someone else was ordering him around and all he had to do was follow, and the worst that could happen was he would get fired. Like a normal job. Oh, how Bruce wished he could have a normal job. (That was a lie - he would hate it. But right now, spending his life in a cubicle sounded pretty appealing.)

“Why won't he believe you? Well, Loki didn’t help by going all rogue and insulting us, but besides that. He can't accept that it might be true. Doesn't want it to be true. Is that it?

“Because, if it's true and it wasn't Loki's fault, Tony can't hand him over to SHIELD. He'll have to leave his room, have to leave his tower… He'll have to face what happened, and he isn't ready for that. He's shutting himself out, which is a classic sign he's trying to avoid it, to pretend it never happened.”

But what was Bruce supposed to do about that? He was a scientist - He solved math problems, not emotions. All he ever did with emotions was shove them away.

But Tony was exactly the opposite. He thought with his heart, as much as he’d like to pretend otherwise. If Bruce could appeal to that…

Bruce’s heart sank as he realized what he had to do. Poor Loki… Bruce doubted he would want Tony to see him in his moment of weakness, but it was the only way.

Still sitting, Bruce tried the handle - because why not? - and gasped out-loud when it twisted all the way, and the door swung open, and Bruce nearly lost his balance. Why hadn’t Tony locked the door? That was unsettlingly out-of-character for him. 

Bruce jumped to his feet and hurried inside before Tony could get one of his machines to close the door.

But, after quickly glancing at the disaster that was Tony’s room, Bruce knew why he hadn’t bothered to lock the door. Tony was asleep. Fully asleep, like he hadn’t been in days. One arm dangled over the side of his bed, his mouth was agape, and from it came deep, periodical snores. His chest rose and fell peacefully as he breathed, the light from the arc reaction casting a dim glow through the dark.

Bruce stared at him. “Shit,” he said, for the third time that day.

()()()

Tony was dreaming - a really fucking nice dream hat he forgot as soon as Bruce started shaking him by the shoulder and Tony was forced to fall back on his reflexes and slap him in the face.

Reflexes… yeah. That was the only reason he had done that.

But damn, did it feel good when Bruce jumped away, rubbing his red cheek, scowling like an impudent child. Tony grinned at him, but it turned into a magnificent yawn. A hollow pit of tiredness settled into his stomach, right next to several others, clearly marked: “hunger,” “thirst,” “raging alcoholism,” “the craving for love and attention,” and “shit, I’m ridiculously hungover, but I want another drink. Where’s a convenient cliff when you need one?”

Bruce threw his hands up. “Sorry, I…”

Tony sat up. “You want another?” He raised his hand threateningly. 

“What?”

Tony disentangled himself from his blankets. “I’m crazy drunk. My liver’s being slowly eaten alive. So you don’t know what I’ll do. I’m unpredictable. Mysterious.” He slid down from his bed and stretched, arms in the air. His back cracked luxuriously.

“I’m sorry about earlier.”

_ “You could be more specific. You’ve done lots to be sorry for.”  _ But Tony didn’t say that. Instead, he said, “No problem. It’s like water off a penguin’s back. Swoosh.” He sliced the air with his hand to accompany the sound effect, as he paced the perimeter of his room, stepping on dirty clothes, not caring. He swallowed down a bitter, stale taste of alcohol in his mouth, but it lingered, stuck to his gums and in between his teeth. Tasted like cardboard.

“Can I show you something?” Bruce asked.

Tony walked around him to reach the door. “Go ahead. Knock yourself out. Do whatever you want.” He waved a hand through the air dismissively, opened the door, and began to totter like a three year old down the hallway. 

“It was on the cameras. The ones you’ve got hooked up to the entire tower.” Bruce was trailing behind him, occasionally running to keep up. He smelled like guacamole. Don’t ask why, but Tony could  _ always _ smell guac, if there was guac to be smelled. And Bruce smelled like guac.

“What was?” Tony had a suspicion that he already knew what this was about. He would have turned and gone straight back into his room, but he was hungry, and he wanted Mexican.

“Why didn’t you lock your door, anyway?” Bruce asked, ignoring Tony’s question. Tony barely noticed.

He took a wrong turn on the way to the elevator, then backtracked, blinking at the hallways. He would  _ not  _ get lost in his own tower. That would be humiliating.

“There’s no point. Either you walk in like a civilized person, or you get all pissy, go green, and trash my room.” As he said it, Tony knew he was being unfair, but he wasn’t exactly in any state to care about anything that wasn’t food. His head pounded. The lights were too bright.

“Fair point,” Bruce said, quietly. He sounded subdued. Like he had taken Tony’s words in stride, or even believed them.

Tony finally remembered the way to the elevator and set off quickly, forcing Bruce to run after him. But when Tony saw the elevator, all he could do was stare at it, like it was going to eat him.

“You know what? I think I’ll take the stairs, get some exercise.” He said.

They then proceeded to trudge up nine flights of stairs, making Tony wonder why his room and the kitchen weren’t on the same floor, because they were the two places he frequented most often.

Once he reached the top, Bruce was wheezing, a flight or so behind, so Tony continued on undisturbed. Steve was sitting at the table, his shield in one hand, a cloth in the other, and a half-eaten bag of microwave popcorn on his knee. Tony grabbed it and shoved a few handfuls in his mouth. Saltiness quickly replaced the cardboard taste.

He leaned against the counter, next to an opened package of deli meat. Naturally, he pulled out a slice, smushed it into a ball, and tossed it up and down.

“Are you…” Steve began.

Bruce trudged dramatically through the door, panting. He put both hands on his knees as he fought for breath. “Wait,” he gasped. 

“Jeez, you're out of shape when you're not the Green Giant,” Tony muttered. He didn't care if Bruce would be hurt by his words.

“Wait,” Bruce said, again. He straightened. “You… need to hear me out.  _ Please. _ ”

Tony threw the ball of deli meat into the sink, and slid down from the counter. “Hell no.”

“It's important. Really important. I think - I  _ know _ \- you're making a big mistake.”

Tony whirled on him, slamming a fist against the wall. “ _ No!”  _ he shouted, making Bruce step back, hands in the air, but Tony  _ didn't care _ because he was beyond caring, he didn’t care about  _ anything. _ “No, I'm not the one making a mistake. Do you wanna know who is?  _ You. _ You're falling right into his trap, and making  _ me, _ ” he knocked his fist against the arc reactor in his chest, “The one who has to find a way to get his ugly ass out of here! I'm a wreck and I'm so drunk I should be  _ dead _ and I need to get a therapist or, hell, I could always hurl myself of a cliff - but I  _ still _ won't let  _ Loki _ hurt another soul in my city. And you know what's funny about that?” He pointed a finger at Bruce. “The two of you are supposed to be heroes, too.” He laughed, bitterly. “So you can give the hell up, Banner. I won’t rest until that monster is behind bars. Oh, and you can consider yourselves officially  _ kicked out _ of my tower.”

He didn’t know if he meant it. He didn’t know much of anything, because everything was spinning. Tony caught himself against the wall, then staggered forward, towards the door, towards an escape. Back to his room he would go, to drown himself in alcohol and inch ever so slowly closer to death - wasting away his life, but he didn’t  _ care _ . 

Didn’t care.

But Bruce was grabbing onto his arm, was pulling him back, was saying something. Tony blinked through the fog.

“Loki had a panic attack, Tony. Okay? He had a panic attack. It was real - I can tell. I know you won’t believe me, but what if you’re wrong? What then? Then he’s innocent, and you have to… you can’t just…” Bruce let go of Tony’s arm and ran a shaking hand through his hair. He looked stressed out. His face was tinged green, like he was going to throw up.

Oh shit.

“Tony… I’m…” Bruce hugged himself with his arms, stumbling backwards.

Tony grabbed Bruce’s shoulders. There was a scrape as Steve pushed aside his chair, and then Steve was beside him, holding his shield, and Bruce was panicking. “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,” Steve said, squeezing Bruce’s shoulders. “You hear me? You can fight this.”

Bruce frantically shook his head. “No, I can’t… I can’t, I’m sorry, I can’t, you have to get out of here, Tony, you have to get your suit on...” he looked down at his hands, but Tony did not follow his gaze, did not check if they were green. He kept his eyes on Bruce’s face.

Bruce was scared, so scared, and Tony cared.

A sudden - possibly drunken - impulse overtook him and he pushed Steve aside and wrapped Bruce up in his arms, so tightly that he  _ couldn’t _ shake, that his body didn’t have  _ room _ to grow and mutate and roar. “You’re good, you’re good,” he said, clapping a hand against Bruce’s back. “Your skin is white as snow. You’re good. Hang in there, big guy. S’all good.” 

Eventually, Bruce pushed Tony away. “He’s gone!” he cried, examining his hands in wonder. “He’s actually gone!”

“They don’t call me, ‘Tony Stark: miracle worker’ for nothing,” Tony said. He grinned because he was so relieved.

Bruce looked up at Tony, his mouth open in what Tony would like to think was awe. Two unspoken apologies hung in the air, but did they really need to be said?

“Are  _ we _ good?” Bruce asked.

Tony scratched his forearm. “Yeah, I think so. Steve?”

“Good as new,” Steve said, smiling.

()()()

Bruce led them both back to Tony’s room. Tony shifted uncomfortably as Steve’s eyes swept over the state of his room, but they were soon both distracted by what Bruce was pulling up on Tony’s laptop.

“Jarvis recorded everything that happened in the hospital room since Loki arrived, yeah?” Bruce asked.

“Ever since I told him to, yes,” Tony replied. He and Steve were standing behind Bruce’s chair, peering over his shoulder.

“Okay. Then…” Bruce pulled up the video recording. Nearly two hours of footage. He rewound to fifteen minutes ago. “There’s me and him.” The screen showed a fuzzy Bruce and Loki, Steve standing to the side. They were talking in static voices.

“It was closest,” the video-Loki said. 

And after a few moments of conversation, video-Bruce said, “Tell me what happened. I won’t tell anyone. Doctor’s vow.”

And Loki started to hyperventilate.

Something twisted, old and rotten and ugly, in Tony’s heart. Perhaps it was the rusted blade of a knife, that had been stabbed through his chest and never removed. It felt like it. 

He remembered hurtling through space as stars whizzed past his head like bullets, he remembered the gaping mouth of the wormhole closing slowly ahead of him, he remembered the fact that he was going to die and how it stole away his breath, leaving him clawing for air. The terror had shoved its way down his throat instead, filling his lungs, suffocating him from the inside out. 

Video-Bruce reached out a hand, and Loki flinched back like he was scared Bruce was going to hurt him. His hair fell over his face, shielding it, but Tony knew what it would look like. Fighting to pretend he wasn’t afraid, the mask half-on, but not enough, and eventually it would fall away and he couldn’t… couldn’t pretend anymore. No matter how hard he tried, some piece of himself always shone through in his eyes. It was useless to pretend.

He wasn’t thinking about Loki anymore.

Pepper always saw. One time, Tony had been happy, so happy, because he had finished a project he was working on or gotten laid - he couldn’t remember which - and he tried to appear somber when he met her at the door, but she smiled in that exasperated way of hers and said, “What now?”

And there was the time, with the whiskey, on the balcony… “You’re thinking about something,” she had said, in that vague way of hers, leaving him to explain. But her tone of voice made it clear she knew whatever he was thinking about wasn’t the whiskey, wasn’t anything happy, even though it was supposed to be a happy night.

She was right, of course. He had had Afghanistan on the mind. That was why he stole back the whiskey in the first place - it was something fun to distract himself. He always needed a distraction. And god, did he miss Pepper.

“That was definitely real,” Tony said. His voice came out all wrong.

Steve looked at him, confused. But Bruce looked sympathetic, understanding. Tony didn’t like that. Bruce wasn’t supposed to read into this. He wasn’t supposed to be like Pepper, wasn’t supposed to be able to tell what Tony was thinking, or feeling. 

Tony looked away from the screen, towards the wreck that was his room, but it was easier to look at. “You know what? I’ll think about it. I’ll consider it.” He clasped his hands behind his head and fixed his eyes on the ceiling. 

“But what about the SHIELD? SHIELD’ll be here soon. We don’t have much time!” Bruce cried, moving to stand in front of Tony. 

Tony folded his arms. “Fury’s not coming, okay? Not officially. He wasn’t there and Hill told me to call back.”

Bruce stared at him. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“So… you could call him back and tell him you were crazy drunk and having a hallucination?”

“Technically. Although, I don’t know if he’d believe it.”

“Trust me, he would.”

Tony smiled, while rolling his eyes. “If you’re going to go check up on ‘Ole Rudolph, could I come with you?”

Bruce did not hesitate. “Sure, as long as you wait so I can ask him if it’s all right.”

Tony nodded. “Okay.” 

()()()

Tony and Steve left, but Bruce stayed, telling them he would follow in a moment.

He was tempted to go to the computer and see what Loki had been doing after he told Bruce to leave. He didn’t even want it to be filmed. Despite the progress they had made, Bruce felt suspicious. What if he had been communicating with some crazy Asgardian supervillain? Or the leader of the Chitauri? What if this  _ was _ all a trick?

His doubts fell away as quickly as they had arrived. 

And he wouldn’t look. That was wrong. Loki had trusted him enough to believe him when Bruce agreed, and said he would honor Loki’s request. Bruce would not look.

It was probably nothing, anyway.

So Bruce left and didn’t look back.

()()()

Loki could not sleep, because his head throbbed sickeningly, and he felt like he was about to throw up.

The euphoria of sweet silence had seeped away, leaving him hurting and pitiful in the bed. Blood had soaked through one side of the pillow, and he had staggered to his feet, found a cloth, and soaked up most of the blood from his wound before turning the pillow over and sinking back into the bed. He felt worse for trying to walk. And the wound continued to bleed. He could feel it, warm against his skin, stiff in his hair.

Loki stared vacantly out the window. The blue sky was hidden by clouds. A bird - he couldn’t tell what kind - circled through it. He could imagine it screeching, a triumphant scream, and diving down to catch a mouse in its cold claws. But instead, it continued to circle aimlessly, always ending up where it had been before.

He shifted, and pain stabbed through his skull. He was swept beneath a wave of nausea, and covered his face with his hands. He felt  _ miserable.  _

_ As you should. _

Loki flinched, shrinking into the mattress as if it was possible to hide.

_ So sorry to see me? _

_ You do realize I am a part of yourself. _

_ You can’t ever get away for long. _

_ Unless you die, of course. _

Loki’s eyes burned. Tears - contemptible, childish tears - gathered behind his eyelids like a vicious Chitauri army. He pressed a hand over his mouth to hold back any cries or sobs, because he would not cry. Would not cry.

_ Oh, this ought to be interesting. _

_ Let’s see how long he can hold out, shall we, before he is bawling like a little girl. _

“Dammit,” Loki whispered to the ceiling, because he didn’t have the strength to properly speak. A haze clouded his vision, everything was blurry. “Dammit. I want to die.”

He didn’t mean it.

“I want to die.”

Didn’t mean it.

“I want to  _ die. _ ”

_ Oh, yes, you always believe me in the end. After all, you always listen, so it’s only a matter of time. _

_ But no, that isn’t right. _

_ I am your mind. _

_ I am your thoughts. _

_ You’ve wanted to die all along, haven’t you? _

“Shut  _ up, _ ” he hissed, his voice soaked through with tears, pitiful tears. “Shut up, why can’t I…”

_ Told you. It didn’t take long. He cries. _

Loki ran his hand over his cheek. It came away wet. He stared at it, at the salty shine on his palm. 

_ Cries like a baby. _

_ A little Jotun runt of a baby. _

_ This is why they hated him, why he could never be a warrior. How weak, such babyish tears. Laughable, to think they would let a weakling like you into proper battle, that they would ever love you as much as they loved Thor.  _

_ You never deserved love. _

Loki closed his eyes, hating the burning, hating the tears that slipped from his eyes, down his face. They fell in a river down his neck and collected in his hair, mixing with the dried blood. He could feel it all, sticky on the back of his neck, and it disgusted him - he disgusted himself.

_ Don’t worry, you are not the only one who is disgusted by miserable little Loki Laufeyson. _

_ Shall we go around and tell our reasons why? _

_ Is it his skin? _

_ His cowardice? _

_ His weakness, his madness, his magic or his murder or his pathetic little tears? _

_ No, there is nothing redeeming about him. _

_ Nothing good. _

_ Nothing salvageable from this sunken ship. _

_ Let it lie at the bottom of the sea. _

_ Let it lie. _

Loki sobbed again, turning into his side, pulling his knees to his chest, covering his face with his hand and sobbing - horrible, wretched things that tore their way from his throat, slicing it to pieces. 

His face must have appeared like the shattered mirror he had looked into before, for it was lined with the trails of so many red-hot tears, so many that he could not keep count. And each one fell to the Bifrost that was his mind, so if he made one misstep, he would slip and fall and plummet forever and ever over the edge.

_ Isn’t that what you want? _

“No… no, I want to live…”

Loki could not breathe. He was sobbing - empty, airless sobs. They grew in pitch, grew frantic, uncontrollable. He took shallow, desperate breaths, but they were not enough.

Perhaps he would die.

Suffocate on the salt from his own eyes.

_ What a sight you would be, lying here in a pool of your own blood, face red with tears.  _

_ You used to call yourself a king, but no king would ever fall so low as this. _

_ You are king of nothing. _

_ Ha! And poor me, forced to live in such a worthless carcass as yours. _

Loki shook.

But everything was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Loki?” came Banner’s voice from the other side. “Can I come in?”

Loki shuddered against his sobs and buried his face in the blanket. He was shaking, shaking… he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop hearing, couldn’t stop the voice. But even now, he wasn’t brave enough to stop existing, to put an end to this wretchedness that was his life. 

Banner hadn’t noticed before, hadn’t seen anything was wrong. But he would this time. He would see Loki for what he was - this broken, crying creature - and he would no longer knock before entering, or offer him water, or make him quesadillas, or ask if anything hurt. For who would spare a glance at this miserable, huddled mess? No one would want to look for more than an instant, for it would disgust them, would make them want to claw out their eyes...

“Loki?”

_ “No, go away. Please go away,”  _ Loki begged in his mind. Begged, yes, like the pathetic excuse for a god he was, so far beneath everything, never a king. Not a god, not even a Frost Giant, a ruin.

Nothing salvageable from this sunken ship.

_ When a man agrees with his madness…. _

_ I would call that going over the edge. _

_ Falling. _

“Loki?”

“No. Don’t come in,” Loki pleaded, but his voice was too soft and too burdened with tears to be heard.

_ But not yet. You will not fall yet. _

_ You don't deserve that mercy. _

He closed his eyes. Another wave of nausea overwhelmed him, but this time it mixed with his tears and was greater and more sickening than before. He could feel his insides churning, could feel a burn in his throat.

_ They will call SHIELD and Thanos will find you. Do not be such a fool to think you have any time left to prevent this. He will have you within the hour. _

_ He will withhold from you the pain you crave. I will speak to you, haunt you, day and night. You are so broken that being spared torture is more tortuous than enduring it. And oh, yes, you will be spared. _

_ Spared even death, that sweet relief you will soon come to crave with every fiber of your being. _

_ I will haunt you forever. _

_ And it will be torture. _

Loki leaned over the edge of the bed and retched, and retched on nothingness, for he had not eaten in four days. He doubled over, clutching his stomach, and it caused a throbbing pain like he had been punched in the gut and he couldn’t breathe. He changed his mind; oh, if only he could speak - he would yell and scream at the door, anything to get Banner to come in.

But the door flew open anyway, and Banner quickly knelt at his side while Loki retched again, and choked on the sickening pain in his stomach when nothing came up. 

“Dry heaves,” Banner said, as if Loki didn’t know. He sat on the bed beside him and, after a brief hesitation, put an arm around his shoulders, while Loki retched uselessly again and again and the pain stabbed through his body, making him feel faint.

But he turned his face away, lest Banner see the tear tracks that criss-crossed his face. 

Banner inhaled sharply, but Loki couldn’t comprehend why.

Then, finally, the retching ceased, and Loki could breathe again.

“Water,” Banner held the bottle out to him. “Drink small sips.” He did not remove his arm.

Loki took the bottle and quickly turned his face away again as he drank. It felt like heaven, washing away the taste of bile that coated his throat. It was cool, like ice compared to the fire of his tears.

“Tony! You were supposed to wait!” Banner cried, sounding angry.

Loki snapped his head up. There was Stark, leaning in the doorway, staring at him. Rogers followed soon after, standing sentry in the corner. “What happened?” Stark asked, looking at Bruce’s arm, which was still around Loki’s shoulders.

“Dry heaves,” Bruce said, nodding at Loki.

Shame oozed from Loki’s pores, prickled at his eyelids, shone clear as day in his eyes. He jerked his head so pieces of hair escaped from behind his ear and fell over his face. He reached for his magic, hoping beyond hope for something, anything to make a glamour. He wanted so desperately to hide, to disappear.

But nothing was there.

He was empty.

“Do you want him to leave?” Bruce asked him. 

Loki did. He never wanted to see Stark again, to see the way Stark’s eyes fell upon him like he was a piece of metal instead of a sentient being, a machine that he wanted to fix. But instead, he shook his head, and he did not know why, did not know why he was always denying himself the things he wanted so badly.

“Okay,” Banner let out a deep breath, like he was bracing himself. “What happened to your head?”

Loki tensed. Suddenly, Banner’s arm around his shoulders was suffocating in its closeness. He ducked away, leaving Banner reaching out at empty air. Slowly, he lowered his arm back to his side.

“Nothing,” Loki whispered, because he couldn’t think of a lie.

“I’ll do you one better,” Stark said from the doorway. “What happened to you? You haven’t told us, not really. You should.”

Loki closed his eyes briefly, shutting out everything for a moment. “It does not matter. SHIELD will be here shortly. None of this matters.”

When he opened his eyes, Bruce was gaping at him. “Oh, shit, I’m so sorry! I forgot to mention that SHIELD might not be coming.”

At first, Loki’s heart soared, but he forced it back down. He would not tolerate false hope, it would break him faster. He didn’t think he could endure that. “Might not,” he said. “You don’t know. You don’t know anything.”

“They won’t come unless I want them to,” Stark announced, a strange look on his face, one Loki hadn’t seen before. “I don’t think I want them to, but I really, really need to know what the hell is going on before I make any long-term decisions. So, Belle, what’s going on?”

Loki, confused, glanced at Bruce.

“He means Aurora. Sleeping Beauty,” Bruce said, apologetically. When Loki must have still appeared confused, he continued, rambling. “Disney princess who pricks her finger on this spinning wheel, because of this fairy who curses her, and you know what? Never mind.”

Loki liked the name Sleeping Beauty. He wanted to sleep. And he wanted a glamour.

Then they both stopped speaking and all three watched him, eagerly like he was some freak show, waiting for an explanation, waiting for his brokenness to hang on display so they could  _ laugh _ at it. 

No, no, no, he could do this. He would not die.

Did he want to die?

Should he give up?

No.

_ Yes. _

No. No. He did not want to fall back into the Void… disappearing into the shadows, becoming nothing at all…

Loki could taste the lie on his tongue, bitter. He was a liar. That was all he was, all he would ever be. Unlike…  _ Thor, _ and his friends, who wore their truth proudly, unashamed. Loki had always been too small, too weak, to bear that burden, so he shoved it behind a glamour, behind shuttered eyes. And they never realized, not until it was too late, and Loki was already broken.

_ Go on. Tell them, so you can live, so you can kill them. _

_ Snuffing out three lives, three good lives, and replacing them with your own, worthless, worthless one. _

_ All for Thanos. For your king. _

_ For him. _

_ Tell them, tell them. Do it. _

_ I dare you. _

Loki focused on the window, at the sky, which was gray with clouds. He wanted to see the sky. He didn’t know why.

He glanced at his wrists, at the bracelets that stifled him. At the blanket over his legs, not needed because his legs were carefully covered by black pants, but he liked having multiple layers to cover the raw, red holes left from the needle, and the ugly crisscrossed lines from the glass, like the tear tracks on his cheeks. He had cut his arms, slicing himself to pieces like he was a slab of red meat. The lines were hidden beneath his sleeves. 

It hadn’t been enough.

It would never be enough.

_ Exactly. What is the point? I will always come back. You are ruined beyond repair. Most people, sane people, would throw away something as broken as you. _

_ Let this end. _

“Loki?” Banner asked, gently. He cautiously touched Loki’s forearm, and Loki struggled not to wince. “You should eat something. Just a little. I don’t think you should eat the quesadilla, but what about soup? Or more water?”

“I am not hungry.” Loki lied.

“Does anything hurt?”

“No. Nothing.”

_ Tell them. _

_ Get it over with. _

_ I am on the edge of my seat. Do it. _

_ I dare you, dare you. _

Loki thought of Thor, thought of the time Thor and he had sat in the branch of a dizzyingly tall tree in the garden because they were immortal and they could.

_ “Climb, Loki. Climb to the top,”  _ said a young Thor, a merely two-hundred year old Thor, with a big pink grin on his face.  _ “I dare you.” _

Loki did not hesitate, because he never backed down from a dare. Back then, he had tried so hard to prove to Thor that he was as big and strong as brave as he was. So Loki climbed and climbed and didn’t stop.

And he fell, as children do, fell down and down. But it wasn’t far before he hit the ground and something snapped and he screamed…

Only one of many broken bones.

_ I dare you, _ his voice taunted.  _ Tell them. I dare you. _

Loki would. But not like this. He couldn’t let it be like this.

He straightened his back, raised his chin. Then he braced his shaking hands against the bed and used his bloodied, torn arms to lift himself up. Rogers stepped forward, and Banner inhaled sharply - “Loki! You shouldn’t…” - but, when they saw Loki had no intention of sitting back down, Rogers put an awkward, heavy hand on his shoulder to steady him.

Loki pushed his hand away.

He hoped his eyes burned with fire instead of tears. He hoped his clenched fists would be taken for righteous anger instead of fear. He hoped they wouldn’t see the tear tracks on his face, that their eyes would move right past.

“It was the Mad Titan, Thanos,” he finally, finally lied. “The one who ordered me to lead the Chitauri army in the attack on your city.”

Rogers hand rested just above his shoulder, before moving away, back to his side.

Stark’s emotions were tangled, indecipherable, but his knuckles were white in clenched fists.

Banner’s eyes were soft, pitying.

Loki hurt all over, within and without, his skin and his bones and his blood.

_ Now it comes full circle. _

_ You always knew it would come to this. _

_ You’ve saved yourself. _

_ But never felt more lost. _

_ Kill them, kill them, kill them. Make Stark retch on the taste of his own blood. Break Rogers’ bones and bury them. Stab Banner with needles, hurl him at the walls of an alleyway, cut him with glass, leaving trails of blood in his ivory skin, in his black hair. Torture them.  _

_ It is what you do best, little runt of a Frost Giant, little liar. _

_ It is what you do best. _

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please review :)


End file.
